


A dangerous game

by taralynden



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:58:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taralynden/pseuds/taralynden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Games aren't so much fun when someone dies; but is Jazz really responsible or is someone else playing games at Iacon Academy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: somewhat graphic OC death in this chapter

They called it gaming, which made it sound harmless enough. And it was, in the beginning. Certainly not illegal. Well at least not officially because no-one had ever been caught doing it and no-one had ever gotten hurt. Embarrassed, yes, but not harmed.

Gamers accessed a mech's processors through the cables on their recharge berths and could manipulate them. Files could not be accessed directly - attempting to do so would alarm the host and rouse them out of recharge - but with practice a gamer could cause the host to feel emotions. Fear or worry. Happiness or anger. Desire or disgust.

With practice, a gamer could bring a mech to overload in his charging state.

Or have him empty his waste tank onto himself.

Or, much more amusingly to the juvenile humour of those playing, onto an unsuspecting berthmate.

It was fun, it was untraceable, and that was as far as it should have gone. But then one of the gamers discovered it could be taken a step further.

_Online_ gaming.

A line or two of extra code, carefully slipped in past the mech's firewalls during recharge. Something that would wait innocuously until triggered and which would then take effect while the mech was conscious. Still just a game, still just a bit of fun. No real harm could come of it.

Could it?

  


* * *

  
Jazz leaned back in his chair, doodling idly on his datapad and mostly ignoring his lecturer as the mech droned on. This was the most tedious of his classes and it was also the most irritating. No-one here cared at all about the calculations for determining gravitational conditions on other planets - anyone interested in that would be at the Science Academy at Crystal City, not the generalistic Iacon Academy. No, this was a waste of time. And worse, it was a waste of time which led to the wasting of more time as Oscillate always gave them much longer assignments than their other lecturers.  


Glancing at his chronometer, he noticed that the class was nearly over. At last. Now interested, he watched over the top of his pad as Oscillate finished his talk for the orn and prepared to tell them about their next assignment.

"...so for next class I have a challenge for you all." he intoned. "You are each to...t-to...t-t-t-t-t-to-to-to-to-to..."

The class stirred, unsure what was going on. Jazz fought hard to keep the smirk off his face as the moments ticked by with the poor lecturer unable to finish his sentence. The moment was broken as the bell rang for change of class, and he gathered up his belongings and headed outside. Leaning casually against a pillar as his classmates and others flooded past, he waited for a familiar Praxian form to find him.

"Tolja there'd be no assignment t'night." he spoke first.

His lover laughed and kissed him appreciatively.

"You're a naughty mech. What did you do to him?"

"I swear to Primus I never touched him."

"As if that'd stop you getting your way. So? What did you do?"

"Nothin' permanent. An' nothin' t'hurt him. Today he won't be able to give out assignments: ev'ry time he tries, his language centre'll shut down. He starts thinkin' 'bout anythin' else an' he'll be talkin' again. Simple."

"You won't leave him like that, though. Right?"

Jazz laughed and leaned in for another kiss.

"I swear to ya, Slimline, he'll be back t'normal by mornin'."

  


* * *

  
"Heard what you did to Oscillate."

The words were a little louder than Jazz would have liked in the open courtyard, but he just shrugged at his fiend, Icon, and joined him lounging on the bench.

"Poor mech musta got a virus or somethin'."

"Yeah, right. A bit obvious, though, wasn't it? Thought you were always looking for the _stylish_ solution."

Jazz turned to face him, slightly irritated.

"What's up wit'you t'day?" he demanded. "Why the interrogation?"

Icon shook his head.

"Nothing much. Just bored."

Jazz relaxed.

"Yeah, well. Nothin' changes there, does it?"

"Nope."

Jazz had first met Icon two deaorns after starting at the Academy. The mech was almost a decade older than him, but they had met at a party and Icon had introduced him to the small but select commnity of gamers. And then he and Icon had taken it further.

Icon's creator was a Towers noble, and Icon was his third creation: not created from need or desire, but in a blatant flaunting of power since the laws restricted almost everyone on the planet to only a single creation. Jewel, the eldest of the family, would be the heir; Icon and the second mech, Gilt, were merely for decoration. Icon had had the best of programming and construction, but he was a mediocre student with little interest in anything beyond turbofox hunting, racing of any form, and attending parties. He hated the Academy, and skipped the majority of his classes, but his creator refused to let him come home until he had achieved high honours.

In other words, he was not to come home.

"You coming to the races tonight?" Icon asked after a moment. "It's a good line up."

"Need to deal with Oscillate." Jazz reminded him quietly.

Icon snorted.

"Why not leave'im that way? Be better for everyone."

Jazz frowned.

"Sometimes you're a bit cruel, mech."

"Hey, you're the one who mucked up his speech function, not me."

"Only cause you've stopped gamin'."

Icon was the one who had introduced him to gaming, and Jazz had enhanced the fun by discovering the way to make it happen online, but the Towers mech was hopeless at implementing it. He needed Jazz's help to identify the right target, and then he got impatient so his coding was so clumsy and went wrong or never initialised at all. Eventually he'd given up trying, just like he did with everything else he got bored with.

"You should game Piper." Icon suggested.

"Piper? Why?"

"The mech's an aft."

"So're you, but there ain't much I can do t'change either of ya."

"So give me his ident code. I'll do it."

"Why?" Jazz repeated. "You don't even take classes with him."

Icon shrugged.

"I'm bored."

Jazz rolled his optics.

"Course you are. Okay, tell ya what. I'll do what I gotta get done, then I'll come find ya. We can go watch the street racin'."

Icon brightened up and Jazz sighed.

"Mech, seriously, y'need t'find some more friends. Y'know that, right?"

  


* * *

  
Jazz's entire body ached as he dragged himself to his final class of the day, mentally cursing the fact that Icon had yet again talked him into drinking backstreet high grade made from who-knew-what and staying up all night. All he wanted to do was go home and charge, but unlike Icon he did actually care about his studies. _He_ wasn't going to stay here forever.

As he turned a corner his classmate Clattertrap leaned in close.

"Better watch out, Jazz, Piper's on the warpath today."

Jazz groaned. Piper was bad enough on a normal orn, but when he was in a mood he was impossible to please. For a moment he seriosuly considered skipping the class, but then dismissed the thought. For him, this was compulsory attendance: his creator wanted him to become an ambassador. Besides, he actually liked the subject. He knew he was good at it; he was genuinely interested in other cultures and ceremonies and traditions and was happy to immerse himself in the details. Yet Piper was always  
claiming he was cheating or blaming him for any misbehaviour in the class. It wasn't fair.

Of course, the fact that he _had_ been caught cheating in one of Piper's other classes three vorns earlier, and that he had played a prank on the mech then that had resulted in him needing to have his entire paintjob stripped and the nanites reapplied had nothing to do with it. Any _mature_ mech should have gotten over that by now anyway.

Walking into the lecture hall he was relieved to make it to his seat without drawing Piper's attention, the lecturer being busy talking with one of the other students. Jazz snorted, seeing who it was. Veneer was Piper's favourite student. He always did well, he got extra tutoring that wasn't offered to others, and even had dinner with Piper sometimes. The less charitable in the class said he was probably spending some of his time in Piper's berth too. For all Jazz knew, it could even be true. But if that was what it took to get top grades in this class, he would rather not bother.  
  
Eventually the class got started, and as always it began with a short reading from the day's newscasts which highlighted how poorly the average Cybertronian understood the culture and values of his neighbours. Piper would always pick one for the class to do a short review on for the next orn in addition to their main assignments, and because they were selected fresh each day there was little class could do to prepare. Well, most of them. Jazz casually lifted his datapad and grinned across the room at Smokescreen who shrugged back at him in good-natured resignation. It was something of a game to try to predict which news item would make it into class, and so far Jazz had correctly done so for the past two decaorns; a trick that kept him comfortably supplied with the tin strips that Slimline loved to chew on when she was studying.

Granted, he managed that predictive trick by doing the work on a dozen or so reports each day in case it happened to be the one selected, but no-one else need know that. Particularly not today when he had only had one joor's charge thanks to Icon's diversions.

The replay ended and Piper instructed them to have their assessments of it ready for him by the end of the orn. For most in the room it would mean locating the feed, playing it back and analysing it, something which could take groons out of their free time. For him, it just meant handing in the work he had already completed as he walked out the classroom door and enjoying the frustrated scowl on the lecturer's faceplates as he did so.

"I have here," Piper intoned acidly, gesturing to a pile of flimsies as he addressed the class, "your last assignment. Let  
me start by saying that I've never been so disappointed with a class in my entire career. Generally your answers were sloppy, your research skills poor, and your arguments weak. Not one of you thought to consider referring to the military conduct code in answering question four..."

Jazz crossed his arms, frustrated. What the frag did the military conduct code have to do with an assignment on Iaconian religious observances? _This_ was why he hated Piper's classes. The mech was insane.

"I am handing back the results in order of achievement." Piper continued, beginning to move around the room and put flimsies down in front of students. "I'll tell you now that only the first five of you actually passed. The rest of you, be ashamed."

Jazz watched, at first annoyed, then frustrated, and finally alarmed as Piper continued to move around the room and did not come to him. Surely he had not done so badly as this? Piper did not like him personally, but was always fair with his marking.

The lecturer did not even look at him as he handed out the last few, then returned to his podium and began the lesson. Several others glanced at Jazz curiously, but he ignored them. He wasn't taking in any of what was being said, he was just trying to figure out what was going on. This assignment was not worth much, but that was not the point. Where was his paper? What did this mean?

When the class finally ended, he let the others move around him, then headed down to the podium.

"Where is my assignment?"

"I have no idea." Piper said, still gathering his papers.

"What's _that_ supposed t'mean?" Jazz demanded.

"Hey, back off." Veneer warned him.

"Stay outta this, it's nothin' t'do wit' you." Jazz growled, remaining focused. "Where the frag is my assignment?"

"No doubt wherever you last left it." Piper responded. "You do understand that you actually have to submit a paper for it to get marked?"

"What?" Jazz choked.

"Your paper was not amongst those I was given."

Jazz shook his head slowly.

"That can't be."

Piper finished collecting his notes and turned towards the door.

"There's no point lying about it. Now if you want to make a late submission I'll consider it, but you'll lose five percent for every orn. Standard practice."

All he could do is watch as Piper left, Veneer hurrying after him but not before smirking back at Jazz. Left alone in the empty lecture theatre, he stared at the offline board. It made no sense. He had handed in that assignment, so where had it gone? Piper was an aft but he was honest.

He paused at that thought. Piper was honest, but Veneer wasn't. And the sycophantic mech had been helping out in the office when Jazz handed in his paper. Had been sorting them for the secretary.

Resolute, Jazz headed for the door. He could not prove Veneer was behind this, but he could slagging well make it a _very_ unpleasant night for the glitch.

  


* * *

  
Veneer looked dreadful this morning, Jazz noted smugly as the other mech stumbled into the commissary. Of course, anyone who had suffered persistent software errors every time he attempted to go into recharge would look the same. And now for the _coup de grace_. A delicate little bit of online gaming.

"Hey, Jazz, you ready to get going?" Clattertrap asked.

"Hold up a click. I wanna see this."

"See what?"

"Jus' watch."

Veneer had made it to the dispenser and scanned his identity card... which was rejected. He tried again, with no better luck. That much was just a little data manipulation, the best was yet to come. Behind the counter the server took pity on him, clearly recognising him, and simply asked him what he had been attempting to purchase. Veneer replied and was handed a simple energon cube. He brought it to his lips and Jazz waited eagerly... but then the mech put the cube down. He turned towards the counter and picked a metal blade used for cutting up magnesium strips.  
  
Jazz frowned. This wasn't part of the script he had written.

"What's he doin'?" Jazz asked.

"Who?" Clattertrap responded, turning.

Veneer turned the blade over in his hands, as though examining it for something. Slowly, he turned it towards himself, settled his hands around the hilt, and pulled inward.

  


* * *

  
Jazz stood under the rushing water, shivering, remembering energon spattered everywhere, and Veneer's screams, and how he had thrashed about...

It was not like in the vidflicks or in the newsfeeds. He had not died quickly and quietly. It had been messy and agonising and it had gone on forever.

Forever and at the same time still not long enough for the medics to arrive from the local clinic. Fifty witnesses, and not one of them had known what to do. What _could_ they have done? Nothing.

It was suicide so the Enforcers had come to take the body and to investigate. They had promised counselling for all who had known him, but Jazz did not want counselling he wanted answers.

Had he done this? Not intentionally; of course not, he had never wanted to really _hurt_ anyone in his life. He had gamed Veneer the previous night, sure he had, and he had been angry at him. But the programming he had added should only have made him spit out his energon because his taste sensors were mixed up. How did that translate to suicide?

It shouldn't have, he reminded himself. But then what exactly did he know about Veneer? What if the mech had already been depressed? What if a restless night and extra anxiety had been a step too far? What if it _was_ his doing, indirectly?

The Enforcers weren't looking for a murderer, this case was clear cut to them.

Jazz wished he was as sure.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: another OC death (may squick)

Jazz had not wanted counselling and had said as much when it was suggested but apparently his rejection of the offer had been ignored and two orns later he was summoned to a small room in the administration block where he found himself seated opposite a stranger with a totally inappropriate designation.

"Cleaver?" he echoed after the mech introduced himself. "What kinda crazy name is that for a psychologist?"

"Well my sponsor wanted me to be a confections chef but I guess Primus had other plans for me."

"You could've changed your name."

"Yes I could, but I'm used to it. And besides, it works well as an icebreaker with mechs who don't want to talk."

Jazz frowned.

"I got no problem talkin'. I just got nothin' t'talk about."

Cleaver nodded patiently, pausing for a moment then speaking again.

"Did you know him well?"

"We weren't exactly friends, if that's what ya mean." Jazz replied dully. "He stuck to a small group, moved in diff'rent circles t'me."

"How long did you know him?"

"A coupla vorns. He was in my intake group when I came to th'Academy. He's been in some o'my classes. I dunno why you're wastin' your time talkin' t'me - y'should be talkin' to his friends."

"We're talking to everyone who was present." Cleaver explained. "This has been a traumatic episode..."

"Made a whole lot more traumatic by havin' t'talk about it!" Jazz cut him off angrily.

He expected the other mech to reprimand him, or at least look upset, but instead Cleaver simply nodded and handed him a small datacard.

"Perhaps now's not the best time for you. Shock hits mechs in different ways, and that's okay, it's perfectly natural. Hold on to this, and if you ever just want to talk, call me."

"That's it?" Jazz asked warily.

Cleaver smiled warmly.

"This is not an interrogation, Jazz. I'm here to support you. If you want to stop, then we'll stop. Shall we stop for now?"

Jazz nodded numbly, and Cleaver rose.

"Well that's fine. But do call me if you change your mind. The Academy are covering the costs up to six full sessions for each affected student, so the option is always there. At least let me just walk you out."

Jazz followed the psychologist into the hall and through to the main courtyard, then grimaced and gestured.

"He's the one you should be counselling." he pointed to Piper who was standing over by a statue of Prima, ignoring the students who were clearly avoiding him.

"Why is that?" Cleaver asked.

"He was frag..." Jazz began to reveal the widely known gossip, then stopped himself.

He didn't know for certain what Veneer's relationship with Piper had been and he no longer had any interest in finding out.

"They were close." he corrected himself gruffly.

"I don't believe he was on my appointment list."

"Well he can have my sessions." Jazz offered. "He'll need'em more than I do."

He could feel the psychologist looking at him appraisingly but refused to turn his head and eventually Cleaver nodded.

"Well perhaps you would introduce me to him?"

Jazz snorted, shaking his head.

"Piper's never had much time for me."

"And yet you still make such a generous offer on his behalf."

"I ain't sparkless - anyone can see the mech's hurtin'." Jazz frowned, then huffed. "Oh for pity's sake, alright, I'll introduce you. Come on."

He led the way across the courtyard until they were right behind the preoccupied tutor.

"Hey, Piper." he called awkwardly. "Someone here wants ta meetcha."

The tutor stiffened, then turned slowly to stare at them. Jazz flinched away from the blank look.

"Piper, Cleaver. Cleaver, Piper. I'm outta here."

He turned away and hurried down the path but before he could get far he heard a gasp and a confused exclamation, and then a rumbling noise and he was knocked from his pedes. Disoriented, he found himself on the ground, face down on the path. His optics focused on something nearby but could not identify it. A shallow, jagged-edged bowl of some sort, filled with energon? Struggling up to his hands and knees he looked back the way he had come and momentarily could not make sense of the scene. There was a crater in the ground where the statue had been, and the courtyard tiles were cracked and scattered. Some of them were smeared with fluid.

His gaze returned to the first thing he had seen, finally able to take it in context, and this time instead of a weirdly-shaped bowl he saw it for what it truly was: the back of Cleaver's helm.

Then he began to scream, and it was a long time before he stopped.

  


* * *

  
_Interlude_

_Location: Enforcer Headquarters, Praxus_

The Enforcer paused before the commander's door, taking just a few clicks to check that his appearance was flawless before pinging for entry. The door opened immediately.

"Officer Barricade reporting as requested, sir." he announced, saluting.

"Come in, Barricade." Brass said warmly. "Take a seat."

There was only one available, placed directly in front of the desk, and Barricade seated himself in it while simultaneously taking in the group before him.

Commander Brass was not alone. He was joined by two other mechs Barricade already knew: Checkdigit, a programming specialist, and Lighttouch, head of research at the medical academy, Ordan Helix. All three had known Barricade for several vorns, and it was usually a pleasure to see them, but this did not feel at all like a social event. Particularly with the way Lighttouch was frowning at the commander.

"I don't like this idea." he grumbled to Brass. "We went to a great deal of trouble to get Barricade settled in here as a specialist in strategic planning. He's not prepared for field work."

"The stress may well activate his glitch." Checkdigit agreed, looking worried. "Surely someone else could do this instead?"

Barricade said nothing, but was dismayed by the indications that he might be sent out. He had barely had a chance to establish himself here, not even a vorn. He was beginning to make some headway with his colleagues, getting beyond their suspicions of any new arrival with no past, and that was not an easy thing for him given his background.

"We have discussed this." Brass dismissed the concern. "You've said your piece, now let's not repeat ourselves. Barricade, you know very well it was our intention to see you placed in your current position for at least half a century without any disruption, but a very unusual situation has arisen. I believe the best option, however unusual, would be to put you in an undercover position immediately."

"Sir, I am not at all ready for field work." he said, trying to see some form of reasoning in the bizarre suggestion. "For reasons which are well known by all in this room, I am underqualified for any type of fieldwork, and I have certainly not had the specialised training to be completed before being assigned undercover work. Moreover, it is not the best use of my skill set."

"In this case there are special circumstances." Brass told him. "I assume you have heard about the deaths at Iacon Academy?"

The news had been hard to miss, being the first civilian deaths in the capital city for over three millennia.

"Two suicides." he responded, summarising what he knew. "One student, named Veneer, cut into his own circuitry with a commissary knife. Two orns later, a teacher set off a grenade, killing himself and four bystanders as well as injuring several others. The latter is of particular concern given the military weapon used but I understood the cause to have been put down to an unsanctioned relationship between teacher and student."

"That is the official story." Brass nodded briskly. "However we've been given cause to think there may be something more to it. We need someone to investigate from the inside and check that nothing has been overlooked. Clearly there is already a great deal of suspicion and fear and a new mech coming in to this environment would not be welcomed, may in fact be spotted as an Enforcer agent no matter how skilled or well trained, however with you we have a unique opportunity to implant someone who has a solid cover story."

Brass paused expectantly, and Barricade reluctantly finished with what was now obvious.

"You want _Prowl_ to go to the Academy, not Barricade."

"Indeed. There isn't any actual evidence that anything illegal is occurring here, but if the anonymous caller is correct it is not the sort of thing a standard investigation will uncover. We need someone to infiltrate the student body there and it needs to be someone whose presence won't be suspicious. Any new student will be watched and one who is asking a lot of questions is too obvious but a student who was from the same cohort as some of the others would be accepted more quickly."

Barricade shook his head slowly.

"I am not sure that that will help. I was not a popular student and never one to spend much time socialising - surely a trained infiltrator would be better than the unexpected return of a mech who is now acting entirely out of character?"

"You'll need to judge carefully how you approach information gathering, but I believe it would be rational enough to expect for you to want to catch up on what you've missed." Lighttouch said quietly. "After all, the accident must have had some impact on you."

Some impact? Barricade mused. Now there was an understatement.

"Very well." he agreed, far from convinced but accepting that this was an order and not a debate. "What information precisely am I to seek?"

"We're not sure." Brass admitted. "The only clue we have at this stage is that a student named Jazz has been present at both incidents, and his name was given in an anonymous tip which turned this investigation from suicide to potential murder..."

_End interlude_

  


* * *

 

Jazz lay with his head in Slimline's lap, trying not to think. It felt safe, here. It was not so safe elsewhere.

Piper had killed himself with a grenade. The Enforcers were still trying to determine how he had obtained a military weapon in the first place, but it was an academic question at this point. The explosion had killed three students and Cleaver, and had injured six others. Jazz himself had been discovered to have shrapnel in his back and legs, and even a piece lodged into his helm.

He had specifically asked them not to tell him where those pieces had come from. He was trying to convince himself that they were pieces of the destroyed statue but was having little success with that attempt at self-delusion.

In any case, his own injuries had been minor. He had been back in his dormitory within two groons, but there was little peace as first the Enforcers had come to interrogate him, followed soon after by various members of the Academy staff. They all wanted to know what he had said to Piper, and what Piper had said in return, since he was the last one to speak with him.

"He didn't say anythin'." he repeated dully.

It was a statement he had made over and over again, and yet still the questions came.

"Shh." Slimline murmured, rearranging the linkmesh blanket covering him and stroking his face. "You're supposed to be charging."

He flinched.

"Can't."

"The medics left you a stasis script." his lover reminded him. "You should use it."

"Hate havin' things playin' wit' my processes."

"Strange, when you spend so much time playing with others."

He looked up in surprise.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing really. Except it's kind of wrong. You're always playing about in other mechs programming."

"I've never hurt anyone."

"You think the medics want to hurt you?"

He shook his head irritably, sitting up.

"Of course not. What the frag is wrong with you?"

Slimline recoiled.

"With me? You're the one who's glitching."

"And why shouldn't I be?" Jazz demanded. "First Veneer tops himself, then Piper. Stuff like this doesn't happen in real life. Everyone's gone crazy."

Slimline glared at him.

"Including me, I suppose."

"What?" Jazz asked blankly.

But Slimline was already rising and stalking away.

"Fine. Do what you like. I don't have to put up with this - you're not the only one upset, you know."

"Liney, please, don't go." he begged, scrambling up and hurrying after her. "Please? I'm sorry."

She paused.

"Are you going to use the script?" she asked.

It didn't make any sense to him what difference it made to her whether he did or didn't, but he nodded.

"Sure. Whatever. Just don't go. Please?"

And just like that, all her irritation melted away.

"You'll feel better when you wake up." she promised. "You need to charge, that's all."

"Yeah." he said, trying to convince himself. "Yeah, you're probably right."

"Of course I'm right." she teased, kissing him lightly then taking his hand and pulling him back to the berth. "I'm always right."

"Dunno what I'd do wit'out ya." Jazz agreed, going willingly.

Yet just as he was lying down again, there was a ping at the door. Slimline huffed and sat on the side of the berth.

"Well?" she demanded. "Aren't you going to answer that?"

Biting his tongue on the comment that she was in a strange mood tonight, Jazz hauled himself up and went reluctantly to open the door. Outside he found Smokescreen.

"Hey." the Praxian said awkwardly.

"Hey. What's up?"

"We're holding a memorial for Piper and Veneer. Just the students. Thought you'd like to come."

  


* * *

 

At first glance the memorial was not markedly different from many of the parties that were held in the Polyhex block common room, with plentiful high grade of such poor quality that you had to be drunk before you could actually drink it and deafening music which drowned out most attempts to talk. The space was overflowing, two or even three times more than the number who would usually come. No-one was really dancing or enjoying themselves, though.

Slimline disappeared into the crowd leaving him alone, saying something about finding them something to drink, and Jazz wandered aimlessly until someone called to him. Clattertrap. He winced, not really in the mood for his classmate's moods, then changed his mind remembering that Clattertrap always had access to the best high grade. Getting drunk sounded like a really good idea right now.

"Hey, Trap."

Sadly, Clattertrap did not look at all drunk tonight, his expression strangely serious.

"Jazz. I need to talk to you."

"Sure."

Clattertrap drew him back into a small break in the crowd then leaned in close.

"You knew Veneer was going to do something. You gamed him. You made him do... what he did."

"I gamed him, but not like that!" Jazz hissed, horrified, pulling Clattertrap out into the corridor. "It was just a bit of fiddling with his taste sensors, but he never even took his energon."

"And Piper?"

"What about Piper?"

"You were the last one to talk to him. Why?"

"I was tryin' to do'im a favour."

"A favour?" Clattertrap scoffed.

"Yeah!" Jazz huffed. "The counsellor didn't even know about Piper, I thought he could do with someone to talk to. I introduced them, that's all. I didn't game him."

"But you hated Piper. Everyone knew it. Why would you want to help him?"

"I didn't hate him." Jazz disputed.

"Sure you did, everyone knows that. So are you gonna confess?"

"Confess to what? I didn't game Piper."

"Can't prove it, though, can you? There isn't enough left of him to search for the code."

"That's disgusting!" Jazz recoiled.

"Just know I'm watching you. I'll go to the Enforcers if I get any proof."

Disturbed by this unexpected attack from a mech he had long considered a friend, he broke away and rushed to the other side of the room, grabbing a cube of energon and hurrying out into the hallway. There, to his dismay, he found a small group of tutors blocking his path.

"Uh, excuse me, can I get through?"

Two of them focused on him, and their gazes didn't feel friendly.

"Jazz. We've just been talking about you." Hydrocore said coolly.

"Really?" he asked weakly.

"Yes. You're one of only three mecha who have been present at both incidents. Do you have any idea why that might be?"

Jazz stared at him blankly.

"Bad luck. Seriously, what are you suggesting?"

"We're not suggesting anything." Academe said quickly, glancing at her colleague warningly then smiling at Jazz with a smile that seemed false. "It's just unusual, that's all."

"And everyone knows you didn't like either of them." Hydrocore continued.

"Just because I didn't like them doesn't mean I wanted to see them deactivated!" Jazz shrilled, stunned that two of the teachers could be this blunt.

Bad enough that the other students were whispering about him, but now the teachers had started listening too? Pushing through he headed back to his room. Arriving, he saw the datastick holding the medic's script and considered it for a moment, then locked the door and curled up on his berth. He would download the script into a drone so it looked like he'd used it; right now he was sick of being manipulated. He just wanted to be alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: no death this time, but graphic description of Prowl's accident back in Praxus

A decaorn later things had settled mostly back into the normal routine. Piper's classes were now being taught by a temporary tutor brought in from Vos, and apart from the construction area in the courtyard outside the administration block and the constant stream of mecha heading off to appointments with the replacement counsellor, it was almost possible to believe none of it had ever happened.

"You'll never guess who joined our history class today." Smokescreen said to Slimline as he sat down at the commissary table.

"Granite?" Slimline asked disinterestedly, naming the miner who often skipped his more academic classes.

"Nope. _Prowl_."

Slimline looked up in surprise, then shook her head.

"Can't be the Prowl _we_ knew. He was going to train as an Enforcer, he wouldn't come here."

"Who's this?" Jazz asked, attention drawn by the word 'Enforcer', still torn over whether or not he should have confessed to the Enforcers what he did to Veneer just to clear his conscience.

"A mech who was at basic prep with us back in Praxus." Smokescreen explained. "Bright enough, but a bit of an aft sometimes - he liked rules. Didn't see him much outside of class, he was always getting extra tutoring in strategy and military tactics."

"So why's he here?" Jazz asked more for conversation than out of genuine interest.

"He was in an accident." Slimline shivered, leaning in against Jazz for comfort. "A heating unit exploded while he was studying one night. He got pinned down and the fire got so hot it melted part of his frame to the wall!"

Jazz flinched at the image.

"And he _survived_ that?"

"Sort of." Smokescreen took over. "His sparkchamber was intact, but his processor was slagged. They took him off to Ordan Helix - the medical academy, you know, where they only take the really seriously injured. Last we heard the only option was to give him all new programming and start him off as a sparkling again."

"But there hasn't been enough time." Slimline pointed out. "What's he doing here?"

"Maybe they found another way." Smokescreen shrugged. "Ask him yourself when you see him."

Jazz felt Slimline stiffen against him.

"He won't be in our classes, though. He's got to be behind!"

"I just told you - he was in History. Weren't you listening?"

"Somethin' wrong?" Jazz asked as Slimline pulled away abruptly.

"I've got an assignment to finish. I'm going to head back."

"I'll come too." Jazz offered.

"No, you stay here." she said quickly, then smiled at him. "You've hardly been out of your room in orns. Stay. I'll come by later."

She headed off and Jazz stared after her.

"What was that all about?" Smokescreen asked.

Jazz shrugged.

"Guess she's got an assignment to write. So. What's the deal with this new mech?"

"Nothing much, it's just weird seeing him again. I thought he'd be scrapped, for sure. Anyway, there's much more interesting stuff to talk about than that boring drone: guess who Blaster saw Keepsake kissing in the physics lab..."

* * *

Slimline was waiting for him in his room when he finally got back, claiming that she hadn't been able to concentrate on her assignment. He offered to help but she ignored that, cuddling close and kissing him passionately. He was happy enough to have her in his arms, but when he tried to move them both towards the berth she resisted.

"Do you love me?" she asked.

"Course I do."

"Really?"

"Sure."

"I want you to game someone for me."

Jazz grimaced, leaning his forehead on her shoulder.

"I ain't playin' anymore, I tolja that. I'm done wit' it."

"Just one more. For me."

"Liney..."

"Please?

"You could do it yourself, I know y'know how."

She stiffened.

"What makes you say that?"

"You were tryin' t'get me t'use that stasis script."

She stayed still and silent, and he shifted to kiss her again.

"It was sweet that you tried, Liney, but I really di'n't want it. Y'can't force someone t'do somethin' they really don't wanna do. An' y'can't fool another gamer: I recognised the foreign code the click it started t'initialise."

She pouted.

"I just wanted you to rest."

"I know. An' it was nice of ya t'try, even if it didn't work."

"Well there, you see?" she asked. "You spotted it and deleted it. That's why I need _you_ to do this."

He shook his head unhappily.

"I don't want to. It's too dangerous."

"But you just said it yourself: you can't make someone do something unless they would do it anyway. So you can't've been responsible for Veneer or Piper. Even if you _had_ tried to get them to kill themselves, it wouldn't have worked unless they planned to first."

It wasn't nearly that simple but he was tired of trying to explain it to her. Besides, it all terrified him too much, the possibilities of causation. The more he thought about the knock-on effects of even a small change, the more he realised how risky it all was. It wasn't right to play about it another mech's processor. There wasn't anything fun about it at all.

Still, he knew she wouldn't leave him alone until he did something, so he at least had to hear her out.

"So who is it?" he asked finally.

"Prowl." she said promptly.

The name was a total surprise and he pulled back to look at her in surprise.

"The new mech? He's only been here an orn! I didn't think you'd even spoken to him yet."

"I haven't." she said shortly.

"Then why...?"

"Because he deserves it. That mech... I don't want him to stay here. I want him to leave."

"Well I can't make him leave if he wants t'be here."

"You can make him feel uncomfortable. Make him want to leave."

"But why?"

She bit her lip, looking away.

"He..." she began, then broke off and pulled away, beginning to pace. "I knew him back in Praxus. We did an assignment together. We were working late and I was tired and I dropped offline. When I came online, he was... he had some of my ports open."

"You reported him?" Jazz asked, shocked.

"No, I couldn't." she shook her head tightly. "He was the teachers' favourite and I wasn't anyone special, they would never have believed me. Besides, I needed that grade. There wasn't anything I could do. Then he had his accident and I thought he'd gotten what he deserved. But now he's _back_ and I want him to go away!"

He walked over to her, holding her close and upset to find she was trembling.

"It's okay, Liney. I'll keep ya safe."

"But just knowing he's here makes me remember. I don't want him here!"

"We'll figure it out." he promised. "Maybe he's changed. I mean, he had that big rebuild. It'll be okay."

"And if it isn't? If he hasn't changed?" she persisted.

"Then we'll see." he allowed. "But I ain't gamin' someone I haven't even met yet."

* * *

"So what happened at Ordan Helix?"

Prowl turned to see an old classmate standing in a nearby alcove. Slimline, the mech who he had once caught cheating on a grading exam.

"I don't remember." Prowl said coolly, disinterested in talking to this femme in particular, then realised that his current job would require him to be more engaging so he could get information.

Hadn't he heard that Slimline was now sharing a berth with the mech of interest, Jazz? Resigning himself to an unpleasant task, he tried to restart the conversation.

"Much of my memory storage was corrupted in the accident and although they managed to restore some functionality early on I have continued to experience glitches with my older memories. This is why I have only recently been released from constant monitoring and can study again."

Mostly the truth, just skipping the fact that he had been working his way through the Enforcer curriculum long-distance from Ordan Helix until he had finally been released to a posting as a new recruit. The issues with his older memories had no effect on his ability to absorb new information, and the focus on his studies had helped him cope with the lengthy procedures to repair the serious physical damage.

"But why'd you choose here?" she asked. "I thought you wanted to be an Enforcer?"

"I did." he agreed. "But I was told I would never be physically suitable for patrol work."

Also completely true; he had simply been given another specialty in the Enforcer corps, one that the public knew far less about and which was usually only a possibility after vorns of service on the streets. He took a click to admire his own clever misdirection, then continued.

"I am hoping to find another line of work which will be just as satisfying. Something in public administration, perhaps."

"You could've studied for that back in Praxus." she pointed out. "You didn't have to come to Iacon. Why did you?"

Now that was a question he did not have a simple answer for. She was right, many places offered generalist courses. He fumbled for something to say that would sound convincing, but then was saved from having to respond as someone yelled from the end of the corridor.

"Oi! You! Back the frag off!"

Turning to see what the commotion was about, he was startled to find a Kaonic mech striding angrily towards him. And not just any mech, but specifically the one he was here to investigate: Jazz.

"You stay away from Slimline." Jazz ordered as he reached them, one arm wrapping possessively around her waist and pulling her out into the hallway. "You hear me?"

"She was the one who approached me." Prowl pointed out mildly.

"Yeah right, like she did back in Praxus?" Jazz sneered. "Oh yeah, I know _all_ about that."

"I don't follow your meaning."

"Sure you don't."

Prowl tried to determine what Jazz could be referring to. It was true, his memories of his time at the Praxian basic preparatory institute were damaged and a few were missing, but he was sure he had never had much to do with any of his classmates. And the only thing he did remember about Slimline, her deception with the grading exam, could not be the cause of this mech's current ire.

"Just leave it, Jazz." Slimline begged, cuddling in close to him. "Lets go."

Jazz continued to glare at him, but allowed her to pull him away.

"You won't get away wit' anythin' here." he promised as they left. "I'll make sure of that."

Disturbed, Prowl headed straight for the communications centre and requested a private comms booth. Students were not permitted to make external calls except from these booths, in an attempt to help them focus on their studies. He was sure it did not work as planned, but that was not his concern.

Bringing up the mission details in his HUD, he dialled the second of the numbers he had been given. The first was for regular reporting; this was was for urgency and went straight to Commander Brass. The older mech accepted the call almost immediately, his familiar features filling the small vidscreen.

"Barricade? Why are you getting in contact so quickly?"

"There is a problem, sir. Jazz is suspicious of me and unlikely to confide any incriminating information in my presence."

"He knows you're an Enforcer?" Brass frowned.

"No sir. This is something unrelated. Still, I feel that the best option is for me to leave and a trained operative to be brought in."

"What unrelated issue is there?" Brass demanded.

Prowl hesitated.

"I'm not sure. His current berthmate is a Praxian named Slimline who I studied with in Praxus, and he seems to believe there was a relationship between us."

"And was there?"

"Not that I recall, and I cannot imagine why I would have entered into such a relationship with her in particular; it makes no sense. Moreover, from the little he has said he seems to believe that I..."

He paused. This was pure speculation, and more than a little unpleasant. He should not have raised it.

"That you, what?" Brass prompted.

"That I had coerced her into the relationship against her will." he responded obediently.

"I see. Why would he think such a thing?"

"I can only speculate that she has indicated such to him."

Prowl waited for a reaction but there was nothing further, so in the end he asked.

"Sir? Permission requested to return to Praxus."

"Permission denied." Brass said firmly, then smiled kindly. "I forget sometimes how young you are. Such silliness over who is sharing with whom always seems so desperately important during the academy vorns, I expect this Jazz is merely jealous of his partner's former lover and making clear his own position. Once he realises you're not interested, he'll calm down. In the meantime, this is good socialisation training for you: something that both Checkdigit and Lighttouch insist you need more of, and I agree. No, Barricade, you will remain in place. I'm sure you'll do just fine."

* * *

Jazz paced in his room, watching the chrono on the wall for it to be late enough to log in to the system he had sworn never to use again. The delay was only making him angrier.

"You want me t'game 'im? I'll fraggin' well game him, alright. Mech's been here less'n two orns an' he's already cornerin' ya in th'hall? Frag that. He's gotta be taught a lesson an' it's okay by me if I get t'be the one t'do it."

He had come running when Slimline had called him, and had been alarmed to find her cornered in an alcove, not able to get away without first coming closer to the Praxian who had her trapped. Jazz's temper had snapped at that sight. Slimline had made it clear she was deeply frightened by this mech's very presence, and Jazz had basically dismissed her concerns, yet here she was being persecuted at the first opportunity. The guilt had made him angrier; he should have listened to her from the start.

The problem was, she wasn't really the type to be intimidated by anyone else. In the time he'd known her, he'd seen her stand up to mechs several times her size without flinching at all. It was part of what had drawn him to her, that fearlessness. With that history it had been hard to imagine her frightened.

The last two groons in her room dealing with her fright had solved that for him.

Seeing the chrono flick over to the new joor - one full groon into the standard charge cycle - he rushed back to his desk and logged in. He had written these programs himself, tailoring a system that let him identify every mech and femme on the academy campus who was connected to the chargers. Their identities were encrypted, but he had learned to interpret the coding and he located Prowl within clicks.

"Gotcha. Now, my mech, lets see how _you_ like feelin' scared."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Ordan Helix is my own creation, the main training centre for medics


	4. Chapter 4

It took every scrap of self-control Prowl had not to flinch as the lecturer's gaze swept over him. Well, self-control plus the heavy utilisation of his highly advanced logic centre. He couldn't be scared of his lecturers because it did not make any sense for him to be feeling so. He ran the reminder on a loop in his processor until he thought he might melt some components, but he did not give in. He would _not_ respond to whatever this was.

It was some kind of attack, of that much he was certain. And he had one very likely suspect for the crime: Jazz.

The morning had not been remarkable in any way until he arrived at the commissary. He joined the line at the counter and glanced back at the room to find a suitable place to sit, conscious that his mission required him to sit with either Jazz himself, or nearby, or with his acquaintances. The mission parameters were thrown from his processor, though, when he spotted one of the staff. For no valid reason, he suddenly felt terrified in a way he had never known in his life.

There were twenty-seven awful clicks when he thought the fear would make him glitch and freeze up entirely, but then his logic centre took over. There was no threat here, neither overt nor implicit, and thus no cause to feel alarm. Pushing past that, he had retrieved his energon and left the room.

As soon as he had been back amongst students and noticed that none of the staff were present, the fear evaporated as though it had never been. He had moved to the side of the corridor, testing his theory and proving it to be non-specific to individuals as his fear spiked at the passing of lecturers and other support staff with whom he had had no contact just as much as with those whose classes he was in. The reaction was immediate and persistent, and totally irrational.

He had not seen Jazz at all, but he was not willing to accept it was mere coincidence that he should have this inexplicable reaction after the strange confrontation of the previous orn. That threat had been vague but there was menace intended.

How it was being done he had no idea, and that was part of what made him persist with his routine. Brass had not thought Jazz much of a threat yesterday, in spite of the fact that he was their target of this enquiry, and Prowl was not sure how to articulate this weird reaction he was having. It sounded too simplistic to report that he was experiencing anxiety; that might just get put down to inexperience with this type of work, and that was _not_ what this was. These emotions were not his own, he was being manipulated somehow. He had to discover how it was done because this was the key to his whole mission.

If he could be made to feel like this, just in response to some perceived slight, what might Jazz have done to someone he knew well enough to have cause to harm? Veneer, for example? The anonymous tip had been that Jazz had been involved in that unfortunate episode, which fifty-two witnesses said was a clear case of suicide. But if Veneer had been manipulated in _this_ way, no witness could have known the difference.

So he stayed in his classes, and did not flinch when he caught sight of a staff member, and hoped that the effect would pass soon.

* * *

With some of the staff still viewing him with suspicion, Jazz was still missing more classes than he attended, walking around the city or hanging out in the common rooms. There were students who weren't sure of him either, but the only one who seemed truly suspicious was Clattertrap, and so long as he wasn't present everything was fine.

Heading back to his room after another long orn, Jazz wondered whether he should contact his creator and ask for permission to transfer to another academy. He did want to finish his qualifications, he just wasn't sure he could do it here anymore. Moving would mean being away from Slimline and away from the friends he had made, and he was currently struggling a little with the concept that that didn't bother him as much as he thought it should.

He walked into his room, still deep in thought, then yelped as a datapad narrowly missed his head. Jumping out of the way, he spotted Slimline standing on the other side of the room and aiming for him again, and she looked furious.

"You didn't _do_ anything. You said you would, but you didn't. You didn't game him!"

"I did!" Jazz protested, ducking to avoid a second pad and hoping it wasn't anything important when it smashed against the wall and broke into a dozen pieces.

"What? What did you do? I didn't see anything at all - he was just like normal!"

Jazz hesitated.

"Wait - you mean he was in class?"

"No, Jazz, I had a lunch date with him - _yes of course he was in class!_ Where else would I have seen him?"

Jazz shook his head dazedly, hurrying over to his computer to bring up the code he had used the previous night, and was startled to find it was already on the screen.

"Hey - how did you get into this?" he asked.

"You gave me the password ages ago. Anyway, you can't've sent it to him because there's nothing wrong with that code and he didn't look upset about anything at all. He even went up to Oscillate to ask questions at the end of class!"

Jazz was sure he had never given her the password into this system, but that wasn't the point right now. He knew for a fact that this code had been received by Prowl's processor, he had been a gamer for far too long to be caught making a rookie mistake like that. But if there weren't any coding errors and if Prowl hadn't been a gibbering mess at the mere sight of a member of the Academy's staff, then maybe Prowl himself was a gamer.

And _that_ was a seriously scary concept.

"You have to try again." Slimline insisted. "He has to go, Jazz. Please. I'm not going to be able to charge properly until I know he's gone."

"I need t'think about this."

"You need to _do_ something. Promise me. Promise me you'll do it tonight."

"I'll figure somethin' out." he promised. "But for now, you jus' stay away from him. Okay?"

"I guess it'll have to be, won't it?" she hissed. "Just don't stuff up again."

* * *

Prowl returned the literature tutor's greeting politely, relieved to find that his reactions of the previous orn had now totally disappeared. Today everything was completely normal once again, leaving him almost doubting what he had experienced.

Almost. The truth was, fear like that could easily have caused someone to despair and act irrationally. By stabbing themselves, or setting off a grenade, for example.

So the next step was to find the method and source of the attack, the problem being that he did not know where to start. It was pure speculation that Jazz was the culprit, but he could be wrong about that. And even if he was right, how had it been done? The only time Jazz had come within reach of him had been in that brief confrontation in the corridor.

He went over his armour very carefully, making use of the various mirrors in the washracks which were more commonly used for checking one's detailing. There were no signs of patches or upload keys that might explain the changes, and his dataports were all well sealed so it could not have been done that way.

He then went through his own data logs, and that proved fruitful as he found a few anomalies: an upload, a file initialisation, and the record of a deletion. He could no longer access the lines of code themselves since they had been purged, but he could trace the history of them and he immediately saw a pattern: the upload and the deletion had happened at around the same time, on consecutive nights. Each time while he had been in recharge.

It was almost more than he could bear to continue attending classes until his next scheduled break period, but he did not want to draw any undue attention. Finally able to escape during the lunch break he headed resolutely back to his room and locked the door to begin a careful examination of the charging cord. He pulled up the specs for the components and went through every last detail.

The results were disappointing. There was nothing unusual about this charger cord. It was standard issue, not modified in any way, and he was out of time so he had to hurry to make it to his next scheduled class.

He barely heard a word of the next three lectures, going over and over the data he had gathered, and by the end of the orn he had reached a conclusion which was entirely unpalatable and thoroughly terrifying, but also the only logical explanation. Someone - quite possibly this mech Jazz - had learned how to manipulate other mecha's programming through the charging system. No mech on the planet would be safe from such a threat. And the evidence seemed to indicate strongly that the reprogramming could have a sufficiently significant impact to cause mecha to take their own lives.

That night he did not charge at all.

* * *

Jazz spotted Prowl at the other end of the cavernous hall and wove through the crowds to find a table out of the other mech's line of sight, where he could keep an optic on him.

At Slimline's insistence he had gone looking to game Prowl again, this time being both more cautious with his planning and more bold with the visible reactions so he could test whether or not the programming was initialising properly. But Prowl's encrypted identity code had never appeared on the display. Jazz had not charged all night, checking regularly, but to no avail: it was as though the other mech had not charged at all.

Or, Jazz worried as he stared at a perfectly serene and apparently well-rested Praxian two tables over, perhaps Prowl had found a way to conceal his identity in the system.

It probably should have annoyed him, or left him feeling challenged, but instead he felt very uneasy about the whole thing. All the others who had known Prowl before described him as being a serious student, boring and without friends. Totally by the book - definitely not the sort to take up a shady hobby like gaming.

When Slimline had told him her story he had thought Prowl must be shy, or socially awkward, and that that was why he had tried to take advantage. Disgusting, but it made sense. But then why had a mech like that done something as openly aggressive as trapping Slimline in a public corridor, with dozens of others walking past? It didn't make sense, and that bothered him. He knew from experience that Slimline liked to hide in those alcoves, to pounce on him and surprise him between classes. Sometimes they never made it to those classes at all...

He pulled his thoughts back on track. The thing was, maybe she had put herself there and he had just walked by and spotted her. Prowl hadn't looked to be at all intimidating. In fact, now that he thought back on it, it looked like they had just been chatting normally. It was Slimline's panicked comm call that had made him charge in and break them up, but she hadn't looked at all upset until he got there. And even then, it wasn't really until he got her home.

Feeling uncomfortable, in the long joors while waiting for Prowl to appear as a target he had hacked his way into the camera footage and tracked back to that orn. As he watched, Slimline positioned herself in the alcove, just as he had thought must have happened. A few moments later, Prowl appeared out of one of the classrooms and started walking down the hall.

Jazz's hands clenched into fists as he watched, waiting for the moment when he spotted Slimline and approached her. And yet... that was not what happened. She clearly saw him well before he looked in her direction and in fact he walked straight past her, only turning when she spoke.

He froze the image, trying to take that in. _She_ had called to _him_. He hadn't seen her, he hadn't cornered her. But how did that make sense? If she was that scared of him, why didn't she run away when she saw him? Or wait quietly until he had passed. Why call attention to herself?

Letting the footage run on, he watched what seemed to be a perfectly normal conversation carry on until he had arrived and taken her away. Prowl had watched them go, then had turned away. Tracking the mech's movements, he didn't see him talk to anyone unless they spoke to him first. He continued down the corridor in the direction he had been walking earlier, going to the communications centre to use a vidscreen booth. His conversation was short, and then he went to the library to collect two books before going to the commissary for a single cube of standard energon. He was only there for a breem before heading back to his dormitory.

These were not the actions of a stalker or a crazy mech.

Cycling the footage forward, he found Prowl collecting his energon on the morning he had been gamed. There was the tiniest hint of a reaction, a stiffening in his stance and a move out into the corridor, but after that there was very little outward sign, as though he had found and eliminated the code. Yet the code had still been there the following night: Jazz had gone ahead with his usual pattern of deleting it, to destroy all trace of his gaming, and it had been there and active when he had gone in.

Tired and stressed, Jazz had had more than enough of all this not making sense. He didn't understand why Prowl had not been affected; he didn't understand how the mech had manage to hide from him the previous night, and he didn't understand why Slimline was so scared of him. Which left him with only one way to sort all of this out.

Rising resolutely, he walked straight up to Prowl and waited until the other mech acknowledged him.

"Can I help you?"

"We need to talk."

Prowl's expression was entirely unreadable.

"Very well. Sit down."

"Not here." Jazz shook his head. "My room. Now."

"I would prefer to meet in a more neutral setting." Prowl responded. "And I have a class to attend shortly."

"Fine. Your room, then."

"A more public space..."

"No. Don't want an audience."

"I see. And my class?"

"Skip it." Jazz said bluntly, his patience thoroughly burnt out. "I'll meetcha there. Don't keep me waitin'."


	5. Chapter 5

Prowl's logic processors raced as he paced along the halls, approaching his room. What was the point of this unexpected confrontation? Surely Jazz wasn't going to murder him personally, that would be too obvious. But why would Jazz want to talk to him at all, and why now? Was it a reaction to him not charging the night before? Would he be that blunt about what he was doing?

Cursing himself for not submitting a detailed report on his suspicions, Prowl reached the door and paused. How the next breem, the next groon, the next joor played out were going to be critical to his mission. He didn't feel at all prepared for them, he was just going to have to respond as best he could and find his way through this mess.

Steeling himself he went inside and was startled to find the room empty. He did not have long to wonder about it, though, because then the door opened again behind him and Jazz walked in.

"I thought you'd already be here." Prowl blurted.

Jazz looked at him curiously.

"The door was locked, how was I supposed t'get in?"

Prowl bit back the response that he had fully expected his self-invited guest to hack his way in and shook his head, gesturing towards a chair.

"Take a seat."

He pulled the desk chair out for himself, preferring the rigid structure over the comfort of the soft armchair; he needed to be alert for this. Jazz dropped into the offered chair and slouched into the cushioning. Prowl waited, growing more and more uncomfortable as Jazz simply stared at him, but finally the other mech spoke.

"Who _are_ ya?"

"I don't understand the question." Prowl hedged.

"Like slag y'don't." Jazz huffed. "Are ya a player?"

Prowl frowned.

"A what?"

"A player. A _gamer_."

The words were meaningless.

"What sort of games are you referring to?" he asked, thinking of the strategy scenarios he had been trained on.

"How'd you stop the script from runnin'?" Jazz demanded, clearly meaning for him to understand that the questions were related.

"Script?" he asked helplessly.

"It was still active when I found it - you musta modified it somehow."

"I truly do not understand what you are referring to."

Jazz glared at him.

"Aren't ya mad, now I've admitted it was me? Nasty bit o'script, that. Stop playin' wit' me."

"It sounds considerably more like you are playing with _me_." Prowl pointed out, belatedly activating an internal recorder and wishing he had caught Jazz's open confession. "Are you saying you are responsible for the bizarre reactions I suffered two orns ago?"

"What d' _you_ think?"

"I don't know what to think. Those reactions were clearly not rational, and they had somehow been imposed on me. But you have barely spoken to me, let alone been in my company; why should I think you were the one responsible?"

"You're sayin' you _were_ affected?" Jazz frowned at him. "You didn't show it."

"I was able to ignore the unbidden response in favour of focusing on rationality. It was irrational to feel fear, thus I did not permit myself to respond to it."

Jazz's jaw dropped wide open.

"You _what_?"

"I felt the fear, I simply did not show it." Prowl summarised, then tried to steer the conversation back to the confession. "But you are saying you were responsible for that? How?"

Jazz stared at him for a moment, then shook his head sharply.

"Wait a click. How did you hide yourself last night, then, if you're not a gamer?"

"Hide?"

"Yeah. I was up all night lookin' for ya."

"I was here in my room."

"Not physically." Jazz growled. "How'd you charge wit'out the charger authenticatin' ya?"

"I didn't." Prowl admitted.

Jazz's gaze turned sharper.

"Y'don't look tired."

"Looks can be deceiving. You, for example, don't appear dangerous and yet in the short exchanges I've had with you thus far you have threatened me, and then admitted to acting on those threats by using the charging system to install some foreign script into my processor, and then to deleting that code again. Do you deny it?"

Jazz flinched and rubbed at his forehead.

"It's been a rough time." he muttered, frustratingly avoiding a direct answer yet again. "Okay, lets assume for a click that you're tellin' the truth, an' you ain't got a clue what I'm talkin' about or how gamin' works an' you're all innocent in all that. So what about what you did to Slimline, eh?"

"As far as I can recall, I did not do anything to her, though it's true that perhaps I should have. I elected to give her the opportunity to confess rather than taking my evidence of her plaigarism immediately to the proper authorities. I doubt very much she took that opportunity at all, but this is hardly likely to be what you want to hear - what is it that you believe I did?"

"She says y'fiddled her while she was offline." Jazz said grimly. "When you two were workin' on a project together."

Prowl stared at him in shock.

"I have never done such a thing!" he blurted. "Besides," he added, trying to stay reasonable, "we never did work on anything together. I'm sure the institute's records will confirm that. Slimline was in the lower stream of our vorngroup while I was in the advanced programme. We barely saw one another, and only spoke once outside of class. It was common practice for the advanced students to sort assignments for the markers, and it was during that task that I came across Slimline's work and recognised it as a copy of that done by another student who had mysteriously failed to submit his paper on time. I recognised it as I had worked with him on the outline of his submission. I confonted him about it and he admitted that he had been paid to sell it and write something else for himself, though he would not admit who had paid him. Then I confronted her and gave her two orns before I went to the administrator with what I knew."

"An' then what happened?" Jazz asked.

Prowl shook his head.

"I do not know. Shortly after that, I had my accident."

"Now wait a minute: you ain't accusin' Liney o'causin' that, are ya?" Jazz frowned.

"Of course not, it was merely an accident." Prowl responded calmly.

The idea was surely ridiculous but he made an internal note to work out the probabilities rather than dismiss the idea out of hand.

"But are you now sugesting yourself that she might be involved in some of this?" he continued. "Is she also a gamer?"

"No. Well... not really. I didn't think she did any of it at all until the other orn."

"What happened the other orn?"

"She gamed me." Jazz answered, then corrected himself. "Nah, she _online_ gamed me. How the frag did she do that?"

"You are unharmed?" Prowl checked.

Jazz waved off his concern.

"I recognised the new code an' took it apart before it could work. An' she didn't mean any harm, she was jus' tryin' t'make me use the medical script I got given t'help me charge after Veneer... did what he did. Still, most wouldn'ta recognised it anymore'n you did. Less, in fact. So she's good at it. Weird. Coulda sworn she couldn't string two commands t'gether wit'out help."

"What if she had help?" Prowl asked.

"Whaddaya mean?"

Prowl shook his head.

"Nothing in particular, I'm merely speculating. What if she had help? Who could have helped her? This mech Icon you mentioned?"

"Yeah, but that's crazy. He doesn't do it anymore."

"Can you be certain of that?"

Jazz stared at him broodingly for a long moment, then scowled.

"Who the frag are you?"

"I answered that question already."

"No ya didn't. An' don't try t'tell me you're jus' some mech who had an accident an' miraculously got all fixed up an' then decide t'travel halfway round the planet t'take courses you're way too smart t'need t'take, cause I ain't buyin'."

Prowl hesitated, considering, then deliberately turned off the recorder.

"You're right. I'm not merely a student." he began, hoping to blur the truth, but Jazz interrupted.

"You're an Enforcer."

Prowl flinched.

"What makes you say that?"

Jazz counted off the reasons on his fingers.

"Everyone says that's what you were gonna be, you ask a lotta questions, you talk like one, how many more reasons do y'need? You're planted here t'find out the truth about Veneer an' Piper, right? Well _good_ because I wanna know too. I wanna _know_ it wasn't my fault. It can'ta been, I didn't game Piper an' what I did t'Veneer wasn't worth nothin', but I wanna _know_. I wanna know who _did_ because I sure don't believe they both jus' decided t'do this on their own."

"How long have you known?" Prowl asked hoarsely.

"Just guessed right now, wit' all your questions."

"Oh."

"So that whole accident thing - it was all faked?"

Prowl shook his head firmly.

"No, it truly occurred. But what is not generally known is that the state stepped in and paid for a full rebuild along with some processor modifications. I'm bound to the Enforcers until my debt is paid off, though in truth that is no hardship since it is where I wanted to be originally. The main difference is that the accident has left me with some physical frailties that preclude me from joining through the usual processes so they have focused on preparing me for a role in strategy and analysis. The intention was that I should never do any field work at all."

"Then why're you here?"

Prowl gave a weak smile.

"My commander thought I would fit in better than a trained undercover agent."

"Then he was wrong."

"So it would seem."

* * *

Jazz sat and stared at the blank wall, trying to get his thoughts in order. Prowl was an Enforcer, and Slimline was... a cheat? And a liar. Prowl's story rang true and Jazz knew himself that Slimline got through classes he was sure she had failed. She had always claimed to have just done enough to scrape through, but maybe she'd done it with a bit of help. But there was another element at play here. He was sure that Veneer wouldn't just have killed himself, so that meant someone else might have gamed him. But the Enforcers didn't know anything about gaming at all so they had no way to trace it back and find the culprit. He could do it himself, but he didn't think they'd let him anywhere near Veneer's shell. Not that he really wanted to go there.

"Check Veneer's processor." he said abruptly. "I never got a chance to remove'em so you'll find two scripts: one that initialised that stopped him chargin' prop'ly, the other that never got started that woulda made him think his energon tasted bad. That's _all_ I did to him."

"I can have someone do that." Prowl agreed. "But I also want to see the system you use for this."

"Sure." Jazz agreed jerkily. "I ain't ever gonna use it again, that's for sure."

"There are other gamers, though?"

Jazz shrugged.

"Yeah, but none of'em know how t'do the online stuff. Me an' Icon figured it out, but Ike gave it up last vorn, he kept messin' up the code, an' so it didn't work. I was the only one who could make it work. Besides, part o'the trouble's findin' your target. The encryption on the chargers is strong. It took me ages to figure out how to crack it. Most gamers just guess an' wait t'see if they guessed right."

"What about Icon?"

"That was half his trouble: he jus' couldn't get his processor around it. I always had to identify the target for him before he tried."

"Could Slimline have done the same for him?"

"Nah, I don't believe that. She struggles wit' th'basics."

"And yet she gamed you."

"Someone gamed me."

"You said it was her."

"She din't deny it. But... oh slag."

"What?" Prowl demanded.

Jazz grimaced.

"Liney. She knows the password t'get inta my gamin' program. She had it runnin' the other orn."

"And that would have told her who her target was?"

"Maybe." Jazz allowed. "It ain't that simple."

"I'll need to see it."

"Sure." Jazz shrugged. "But, uh, you'll be missin' another class."

"As you have already deduced, that is somewhat irrelevant. It should be more of a concern for you."

"Mech, right now I can't focus on nothin' 'cept this. The class'd be totally wasted on me."

"Understood. Lead the way."

* * *

Prowl watched as Jazz used several complex authentications to access an innocuous-looking program on his terminal. The program loaded and looked very much like a standard coding suite; even if he had walked in on Jazz using this, he would likely not have recognised it as being of interest. Then Jazz opened a file and scrolled through the list.

"There. That's everyone I've ever gamed. There's Veneer."

"You told me you hadn't gamed Piper." Prowl reminded him flatly, quickly memorising the names he saw for later investigation.

"I didn't."

"Then why is his name in this list?"

Jazz started to argue, then hesitated.

"Oh. Wait. I gamed him a few vorns ago. Just a prank, nothin' serious. See, I'll show you the log."

Prowl looked at him in disbelief.

"You keep a log of your illicit activities."

Jazz winced.

"Uh, yeah. Guess that's not so smart, huh?"

"Not particularly." Prowl responded, but was in fact thinking the opposite.

A log showing date, time and the code applied was evidence all by itself that contributed towards the idea that Jazz had not done any serious harm with this pursuit. If he had been involved in such acts, he would do everything he could to delete all trace of them.

"Do you enter the log manually?" he asked casually as Jazz accessed the archive, quietly taking note of every key stroke.

"Nah I set it up to do it automatically."

"Why?"

Jazz shrugged uncomfortably.

"Proof. Icon an' me, we usedta dare each other t'do stuff. But sometimes it's hard t'be sure if it's really happened, so I set up our systems so it'd track it; that way..."

"Systems." Prowl pounced on the word. "As in, more than one?"

"Yeah?"

"Icon has a similar setup?"

"Sure."

"Can you help me get access to it without him knowing?"

Jazz glared at him.

"I've toldja already: it ain't him."

"Then the log in his system will prove it. Correct?"

"Look jus' cause he's a Towers mech don't make him a _bad_ mech."

"It doesn't make him innocent, either." Prowl countered. "Now please. How do we get to it?"

"Well... okay. Just to prove you're wrong. We'll go now. He'll be in the common room bettin' on the gladiator fights. Won't be home for joors."

"What about his neighbours? There must be no-one who can tell him we were there."

Jazz considered for a long moment, then rose.

"Then we go _now_. Ev'ryone else in his hall'll be watchin' the match except for Kite who'll be in class for another quarter groon."

* * *

"Wait here." Jazz declared, pointing to a spot by an empty wall.

"But his room is in the next corridor." Prowl argued.

"I know that, but just wait here a click."

"We don't have time to waste. And besides, if you go in there without me then you only incriminate yourself once again."

Jazz considered, then gave in.

"Oh frag it. Come on then."

They walked up to the door, and Jazz popped the cover off the keypad.

"What are you doing?" Prowl asked, his voice soft but alarmed.

"Well I don't have the code, now do I?"

A few clicks went by, then Prowl deliberately turned around to face the opposite direction.

"Not gonna say anythin'?"

"I feel it's best to ignore this entirely." Prowl said stiffly.

Jazz chuckled.

"Toldja y'shoulda stayed round there. Ah. Got it."

"Will he recognise the forced entry?" Prowl asked, turning back.

"What forced entry?" Jazz asked lightly. "I'm too good to get caught."

Prowl frowned at him.

"I'm starting to wonder if there's much _good_ about you at all."

"Ouch, mech, that's a cruel thing to say."

Prowl did not apologise, stepping inside.

"Come along, we need to get this done quickly. You said his neighbour's class ended in four breems."

Jazz fitted the cover back into place then stepped in and walked confidently over to Icon's terminal. He had spent so many joors in here it was as familiar as his own room. Still, it had been a little while and there had been some changes. He stiffened a little, spotting some of Slimline's assignments on the desk. How would he have gotten hold of those?

Reminding himself of the task at hand, he accessed the system using Icon's login - the mech never changed a password unless forced to - and brought up the system log. Then choked when he saw the sheer mass of data. It seemed Icon had never stopped gaming after all; if anything he was doing a whole lot more than before.

"Primus."

"It seems we have found our culprit." Prowl murmured, reaching over his shoulder and holding out a datapad. "Are you able to copy the log onto here?"

"What?" Jazz asked, only half-hearing him.

Seeing the high level of activity where he had fully expected to find none at all had shaken him. What was Icon thinking? _Was_ Icon thinking?

"The log. Can you copy it?"

"Oh. Not the whole thing. It'll take too long. I can get the stuff on Piper an' Veneer, though." "Then do so."

Jazz set up the pad, then ran a search query to find anything using Veneer's identity code. When it finally finished copying he did the same for Piper, then opened the copy of Veneer's file.

"Hey. Weird."

"What is?"

"It's been encrypted. I can see he did somethin' an' when he did it, but not _what_ he did. There's a lot of it, though. Should be able t'break it."

"I'll send it to a cryptologist. Just copy it for now."

"That's what I'm doin'."

"Good." Prowl said, though his tone disagreed. "This is taking too long."

"Nearly done."

Going back to the main log in preparation for signing out, another code caught his optic.

"Whoa, hang on. What's _this_?"

"Jazz, we have to go."

"Just a click, I need t'look at this. This is dated from the other night? Slag, it's encrypted too. What the frag has he done?"

"Far too much, but we have no time to investigate further. We have the evidence we need, now we must leave before we are seen. He may react badly if suspicious."

"Oh I think it's too late for that, mech." Jazz said slowly, staring at the screen. "He's already gamed ya. An' right now I can't see what he's done so I can't fix it."


	6. Chapter 6

Prowl took care not to show any outward concern, but internally he was terrified. He had been gamed once already, by Jazz, and that attack had only intended to intimidate. If Icon truly was a murderer - and the weight of circumstantial evidence to date suggested that he was - then he could well be in serious danger.

The walk back to Jazz's room seemed interminable. What might trigger him? It could be anything at all. Was he safer alone or with others? Veneer's actions had only harmed himself, but Piper's had been viciously heedless of who might be nearby. Had they known what they were doing, as they did it? Watching themselves act and unable to stop? Or had it somehow blanked out their awareness along with their control? His own experience had suggested that he would be aware; not at all a palatable prospect. His self-control had been enough to save him last time, but would it be enough this time?

Jazz had insisted on taking the extra two breems to download the file containing his data, in spite of the risk of being seen or heard. Under the circumstances Prowl hadn't felt strong enough to argue with that, and as it happened they saw no-one until they were well into the general causeways; nowhere at all suspicious, though merely their common purpose may be enough to generate comment. Jazz greeted a few of the mecha they passed, several of whom seemed surprised to see them together. Would any of them mention this strange occurrence to Icon? What would he do if they did?

Finally arriving back, Prowl sank onto the side of Jazz's berth, feeling shaken.

"Hey, you okay there, mech?"

"No." Prowl admitted hoarsely. "No, I am not."

Jazz hesitated, seeming about to say something, then changed his mind and turned towards his terminal.

"Right, well lets see if we can figure out what he's done."

"I should leave you in peace to work."

"Oh no y'don't. Can't leave ya alone, y'might do somethin' unfixable!"

"Only to myself." Prowl pointed out. "If others are nearby when the script is triggered there is no telling how much damage I might do. Besides which, if I perish you can still go to the Enforcers with the evidence."

"You ain't gonna die." Jazz told him. "I'm gonna sort it out."

"How?" Prowl asked flatly.

Jazz scowled.

"I dunno yet. But I will. Now sit there an' shut up an' let me work."

* * *

_Interlude_   


_Location: Enforcer Headquarters, Praxus_

"So how is Barricade doing?" Checkdigit asked.

Brass looked at him wryly.

"Don't you mean Prowl?"

"I know who I mean." Checkdigit insisted. "Prowl is an identity he gave up when he became and Enforcer. He is undercover now as much as any other infiltration agent."

"I disagree." Lighttouch frowned. "We were able to restore most of his memories, and while he has settled most comfortably into his role here it's not beyond the realms of possibility that being surrounded by members of his former age cohort will have an effect on him. I have my doubts that the mech who returns to us will be quite the same as the one who left."

"Well you're right, there." Brass allowed. "He's slipped straight back into the dramatics of his age group. He called less than an orn into the mission because someone was jealous of him. Apparently he had previously been in a relationship with the femme who is now Jazz's partner - now what are the odds of that?"

Lighttouch frowned.

"I very much doubt that is true."

"Just because he's been totally committed to his training since we took him on doesn't mean he didn't have a life beforehand." Checkdigit chided his friend.

"No, but his programming does." Lighttouch said firmly. "He had not yet had his interfacing upgrades at the time of the accident. He had not even had the pre-programming. His creator and the medic at the local clinic both confirmed that he had requested a delay in implementation so he could focus on his studies."

"And that got approved!" Checkdigit choked.

Lighttouch shrugged.

"It is not recommended due to socialisation issues, but there are actually no physical reasons to insist on the standard time frame. Most have the programming installed simultaneously with their physical upgrades, but it does not have to be done that way. It is a regrettably common request amongst some military models."

"But he has had the upgrades now?" Brass demanded. "And applied them?"

"His programming is complete." Lighttouch assured him. "Beyond that, you will need to ask him yourself."

"I'm confused." Checkdigit confessed. "If he didn't have the code for it, what does that mean about Jazz being jealous of him?"

"It means," Brass began, paused to check a detail on his terminal, then continued grimly. "It means I may have ignored a serious problem. Particularly since Prowl has not made contact since that call."

_End interlude_   


* * *

Buried deep in a mass of code, Jazz was confused for a moment when something impinged on his concentration. After a moment he registered it as noise that was being picked up by his audials and began to pull out of the sequence to better concentrate on it, then paused as his hasty rearrangement of a couple of lines of code suddenly made several things synchronise. Part of the script was now legible and the rest was unravelling, and with a little more effort he thought he might even start to... but his concentration was being disrupted. Irritated, he pulled out of the program and onlined his optics.

"What the _frag_ , mech?" he began, turning in his chair to rail at Prowl.

Only it wasn't Prowl he found standing behind him.

"Mech?" Slimline demanded. "Who did you think was here?"

His processor still half on the task, he looked about in confusion. Where had Prowl gone? Jazz had told him it was dangerous to head off alone.

"What? Oh, no-one. I just... never mind. What's up?"

"What's _up_?" she shrilled. "You skip classes the whole day and you _didn't_ go watch the fights so don't even try to tell me that, and then you leave me waiting outside the bar by myself for ages looking like an idiot..."

Jazz stared at her, suddenly remembering the agreement to go out to dinner tonight. The revelations of the orn had thrown all other engagements completely out of his processor, along with any thought that she might start to wonder where he was.

Uncharitably, his very next thought was a wish that they had gone back to Prowl's quarters where she would not have found him. Though of course Prowl's terminal was not set up for this.

"I'm workin' on somethin'."

"I see that. What is it?"

"A new bit o'code." he told a half-truth.

She saw straight through it.

"Liar. You said you weren't going to game anymore."

"I changed my mind."

"Oh sure you did. Or maybe you're just trying to hide what you've done."

"I'm tryin' to help _you_." he insisted, finally thinking up an excuse.

"Me? How?"

"You wanted Prowl gamed. I'm tryin' again."

She snarled.

"You were _seen_ with Prowl. You brought him back _here_ and he was here for ages. Best mates now, huh? Or is it _berth_ mates?"

Primus help him, but he _hated_ the gossip chain sometimes.

"I needed to pretend." he explained. "Needed to get him where I could get into his code. I didn't frag him, Liney. He's been on that berth, yeah, but not wit'me. You gotta believe me. You're the only one for me."

He felt sick to his tank saying such things after realising what she was caught up in, but his act must have appeared sincere because she relented a little.

"So you got in?" she asked.

"A little way." he hedged. "His processing's way diff'rent to anyone else's I've met. That's why it didn't work the first time. I'm tryin' t'find a way 'round it now."

Her optics flicked to the screen. It was blank, Jazz knew, just as it always was when he was gaming. He preferred to do the actual planning and programming in his own processor first. It made it look like he didn't ever write a failed script, rather than the truth that he only used scripts he knew already would function properly. That was part of what Icon did wrong: he tried to do all the steps at once, instead of breaking them down.

On the other hand, it now seemed that Icon had learned better, he reminded himself.

"How's it going, then?"

"Hard work. I was gettin' somewhere, but then ya pulled me out." He paused. "Sorry about the bar - I lost track o' time. Wanted to surprise ya wit' havin' this ready t'go."

She looked at him pensively, then nodded.

"Okay. Well, since you were doing it for me, I'll forgive you this once. But tomorrow I want to see it happen, okay?"

He stretched his lips into a smile.

"Sure."

She beamed at him, then leaned in for a kiss. He returned the gesture, but then pulled back when she appeared to want to go further, shrugging apologetically.

"Better get back t'work if I'm gonna meet your deadline."

"You want me to stay with you? To help celebrate when you're done?" she asked.

"Nah." he said, trying to sound reluctant. "Better wit' no distractions. That way it'll get done right."

"Alright then. See you in the morning."

"Yeah. See ya."

She sauntered out and he waited a moment, then got up and locked the door. Then hacked into the keypad to make sure it could not be opened again. One scare was more than enough for one orn.

* * *

Prowl lay still on his berth, not daring to recharge in case that exposed him to further manipulation, but also not daring to do anything else. If it had not triggered yet, then so long as he stayed still and did nothing he should be fine. There was nothing in here to trigger him, he had locked the door and muted the alert on his terminal. Now he was just waiting for Jazz to come and find him.

It was horrible.

He had had a lot of practice at lying very still, doing very little. The early stages of his recovery after the accident had left him with more time than he could adequately fill, and sometimes in the long groons of the night when he had no external stimulus it had felt like he was starting to go crazy. This felt the same. He wanted badly to get up, to walk or eat or wash or do _anything_ at all. The urge was entirely natural, but he did not trust it. It might be part of the programming.

So instead he lay very still and stared at the ceiling. A ceiling which he had visually measured and assessed. He knew its exact dimensions, the precise position of every crack and stress point and mark. He had spent several breems contemplating a faintly yellow scrape in one corner; it looked like mech paint, but how had someone managed to leave such a mark up so high? His tactical centre told him the most likely scenario was that the room had once had bunks (a theory reinforced by the patch plates strategically placed on the wall) and that someone in the top bunk had been acting in a somewhat rambunctious manner. But he let other scenarios play out, trying to fill in time.

He was just contemplating whether it was possible for a flier model to actually get into the air in the confined space of the room when he was distracted by a creaking noise coming from the ceiling. He stirred unhappily. Was he becoming delusional? He tried to ignore the sound but it came twice more, then there was a shuffling sound. Then nothing for a long moment and he started to relax.

Until there was a squeaking noise. Very faint, but dragging on. Pause, then again at a higher pitch. A soft thud. Then suddenly a section of the ceiling - fourth row, second panel, from the way he had counted them - dropped to the floor with a loud clang. And before he could respond to that, it was followed much more gracefully by a familiar figure.

"Jazz!"

"Hiya. Hope ya don't mind me droppin' in."

Prowl felt his processors threatening to seize up. Jazz was behaving as though this was a totally normal occurence rather than a method most commonly employed by thieves and spies.

"Why were you in my ceiling?"

"I wasn't for long." Jazz responded easily, brushing himself off and moving the ceiling panel neatly off to one side where it was out of the way. "It was just a way o'gettin' here."

"Why didn't you use the door?" Prowl ground out.

"Too many watchin' optics. This way no-one knows I'm here."

"And do you do this often, sneaking about in this way?"

Jazz looked hurt.

"Hey, mech, I ain't here for a lecture, I'm tryin' t'help ya. An' I'm pretty sure I can, too."

Prowl sat up.

"You cracked the code?"

"Yeah. Easy enough once I figured it out."

"So what am I going to do?"

Jazz pulled up the desk chair, settling on it backwards and resting his chin on the backrest, his expression worried.

"You're gonna go for a walk right off the edge of the astronomy tower."

Prowl offlined his optics. The tower was the highest point in the academy grounds that was accessible to all students. Nothing suspicious about him going up there, and the fall was considerable: off to the side of the tower was a fissure that went down deep into the planet. He was not at all sure how far down it was, but it was certainly far enough for the fall to be fatal. And even if it wasn't immediately fatal, it would take time - perhaps even orns - for anyone to get down to him.

"And the trigger?" he asked.

"Slimline touchin' ya." the answer came reluctantly.

And once again, Jazz's lover was involved. Exactly how was she entangled in all of this?

"By touching, do you mean...?"

"Just a touch, nothin' kinky. She could do it in the middle of a class, no-one'd realise she'd done anythin' at all."

Prowl tried not to think about how easy it would be for her to get away with such a thing, choosing not to even acknowledge the word 'kinky'.

"Do you have a solution for me?"

"Yeah. I'm gonna interface wit'ya an' see if I can deactivate it that way."

Prowl booted his optics up in a hurry, staring at the other mech in shock.

"You're going to _what_?" he yelped. "Why do it that way? Why not use your software?"

Jazz shook his head.

"The software'll only pick ya up if you're rechargin', an' we don't dare let ya do that or you'll be a target again. They might do somethin' worse while I'm tryin' t'sort this out. Nah, it's gotta be fixed online."

"And there's no other way?"

"None I can think of. Y'can't jus' stop chargin' forever. An' no matter how hard y'try to avoid her, if she's determined she'll get to ya an' that'll be it."

"Then it seems I have no choice. Are you sure this will work."

"Nope. But I'm good at what I do."

"Just keep your processor on what you're supposed to be doing, and off any other activities."

Jazz shrugged.

"Your loss, mech. Now lie back, turn off your optics an' let your ol' friend Jazzy do the rest."

"Old friend? But we only just met..."

"Mech? Stop jabberin' an' jus' lemme get on wit' it, eh?"


	7. Chapter 7

Jazz was considerably more nervous than he let on as he unspooled a data cord from his wrist. This wasn't like interfacing for pleasure, which would involve them both being linked to each other through secondary ports and was far more familiar and comfortable for both of them. This was making use of a primary port, used almost exclusively by medics during upgrades. Get something wrong here and he could do some serious damage. Possibly irreparable.

On top of that, he was less than certain he knew what to do once he got in there.

Besides, the whole thing upset him. What Icon was doing should not work, it should not be possible to make a mech act outside his nature. If he had found a way around that, who knew what else might be lurking in that code?

He looked up, about to make a joke to lighten the mood, but then saw that Prowl had already opened a port in the side of his neck: not just any primary port, but the one with the most direct access to a mech's programming. Primus knew that Jazz would think twice before letting someone else connect up there, particularly someone he had only just met, but in the short time he had known Prowl he'd learned that the mech always did things differently to most.

Left speechless, he remained silent and plugged in. As their systems synched, he settled on his knees beside Prowl's chest, one hand resting on the prone mech's chest, fingers rubbing in small circles. The gesture was intended to make the other mech relax, but it did not have that effect. Then again, Jazz supposed there weren't that many mecha who could relax under these circumstances.

An alert popped up on his HUD, letting him know he was properly connected and requesting an override to bypass Prowl's firewalls. But before he could even begin to consider how to work around that, it disappeared. Prowl was _letting him in_ ; an immeasurable show of trust that Jazz could not be sure was justified. Now beyond the firewalls Jazz was beginning to get data through the connection. Prowl was not nearly as calm as he appeared, and yet his thoughts and processes were eerily ordered.

"Ready?" Jazz asked.

"Of course." the response came immediately, along with a flurry of processor activity that Jazz did not bother to examine.

There was no more reason to delay; he was sure that this was the best option, that to do it the other way would only expose Prowl to more danger, and his opinion of that had not changed. So he had to get on with it.

Pausing only to make one final prayer to Primus that he did not mess this up, Jazz dialled down his external sensors and set to work.

* * *

As the breems crept slowly past, Prowl found himself considering the ceiling once more, though this time he felt less inclined to move - staying right where he was now was his best option. He had lost track of how many times he had been in this position, though in those situations it had always been skilled medics connected up to him. Here he could only hope that Jazz's knowledge and experience were enough not only to get rid of the malicious code, but also to avoid doing any other damage.

Sometimes he could partially feel what Jazz was doing. It was a sensation he had no words for; not quite a touch or a sound, but similar. A tickling in the centre of his helm, a twinge in his cortex. Twice he saw lines of code appear on his HUD in complex programming script that he could not parse, but each time they vanished within clicks.

9.742 breems along, suddenly there was a change. Jazz stirred faintly, then slumped strutlessly down on top of him.

"Jazz?" he called, not sure what had happened or if it were safe to move.

There was no response.

"Jazz?" he tried again, this time moving his shoulder to shift Jazz's head just a fraction.

Still no response.

Prowl considered his options carefully, and concluded that he did not have any. Moving even to change position would risk disconnecting the cord between them, and might do serious damage to either of them. Sighing, he resigned himself to waiting until Jazz came back online, and began counting the tiles again.

It took another seven breems, almost as long again as the initial wait, then Jazz groaned.

"Jazz?"

"Nngh. What happened?"

"You went offline."

"Oh. Uh, any reason you're huggin' me?"

"I did not want you to move unwisely in your disoriented state and forget that we are still connected."

"Huh? Oh. Right. Um, thanks."

Prowl let go and Jazz sat up cautiously, carefully backing out of his firewalls and then disconnecting the cord. Relieved to at least have his processor to himself once again, Prowl also sat up, impatient to know the result.

"Were you able to find and disable the code?"

"Hmm? Yeah, it's gone. You're safe."

"Then why are you so distracted?"

Jazz froze for a moment, then shook his head.

"Jus' thinkin'. Didn't think it'd be that easy. Never knew a mech's processor could be so _organised_. So. What's the plan from here?"

"I will need to contact my supervisor. He will organise for Icon to be arrested and the equipment impounded. You will need to be taken to the nearest station to give a formal testimony but after that you should be able to resume your studies without further disruption as long as you swear never to use this skill again. Obviously you will always be monitored in case you choose to break that promise."

"So you'd put'im on trial?" Jazz asked, his tone slightly peculiar.

"Of course."

Jazz visibly paused, apparently thinking hard, then nodded slowly.

"Right." Pushing himself up to his pedes, he grabbed Prowl's chair again. "Okay, you do what you've gotta do. I'd better go."

"Go where?" Prowl asked.

Jazz smiled at him sunnily.

"Back t'my room, o'course. Can't have mecha wond'rin' how I got in here, now can I? Or what I was up to in here? The gossip chain's even faster'n hypertext round here!"

There was something in Jazz's manner that worried him, and Prowl rose.

"Be careful. Don't confront Icon - not when we're this close to having this resolved."

"Trust me, mech. I ain't gonna do anythin' I'll regret."

Somehow that promise did not seem at all reassuring.

"Jazz..."

"It'll be fine. Now, can ya gimme a hand t'get this panel back in place?"

* * *

Two breems after leaving Prowl, Jazz strode down the corridor, intent on his task. He had paused in his room long enough to ruin his own terminal, now he needed to destroy Icon's copy of the gaming software before anyone else got hurt.

He knew that Prowl would not approve. The mech wanted Icon to face trial, but that was too simplistic a view and Jazz could see all too clearly where it would lead.

Gaming was not actually against the law because no-one had ever conceived of it being possible. And once it was known that it was possible to cause mecha to do just about anything - to kill themselves, and others - then there would be no stopping it. Criminals would put vast resources into working out how to do it, and once they did then no-one would be safe. It had to be stopped here and now. And the one saving grace was that Icon did not know enough of how the software actually worked to rebuild if his terminal was damaged.

So that was what needed doing. Even though it would destroy a lot of the evidence that proved Jazz himself was innocent, even though it would hide the truth that Piper and Veneer deserved to have known - that they had been manipulated, rather than tragically flawed in their programming - this _had_ to be done.

He acknowledged no-one as he walked. He didn't care who saw him. Let them tell Icon he was the one who had done this; the mech would guess easily enough anyway. And at least this way he would be able to charge at night without fear that next time he might not recognise the foreign code in time to stop it activating.

Reaching Icon's room he used the code that he had discovered last time and the door opened. As expected at this time of the orn, the room was empty. He moved straight over to the terminal and turned it on. This would have to be done right: he wanted to make sure that even the best data retrieval expert could not rebuild what he was about to destroy. Thankfully, since he had written this software himself in full knowledge that the Academy faculty would not be at all amused by it if they ever found out, he had built in some data destruction sequences. He had thought them to be a failsafe, expecting to use them when he left the Academy, so that no-one else stumbled across the program. They were simple enough to initiate, and should be pretty much impossible to undo.

Keying in several authorisation keys he nodded grimly as the final warning came up. Yes. Time to destroy all of this. He keyed in the final sequence, then leaned back to watch it slowly melt down. But just as his back touched the seat cushioning, a voice intruded.

"What the frag are you doing?"

Jazz froze at the sound of a familiar voice, then turned around to find Icon standing right behind him.

* * *

After Jazz had gone Prowl restored the ceiling panel and tidied up, then sat quietly on the side of his berth to think. Jazz was planning something, but what could it be? They had the evidence now, so everything should be straightforward and would be handled by the book.

Jazz's question echoed in his processor, making him feel uneasy. Why had Jazz questioned the fact that Icon would be put on trial? It was a strange question to ask when Jazz knew that Prowl was an Enforcer and that the Enforcers always granted every criminal a fair hearing before they were judged. Not that Prowl expected there to be any mitigating circumstances in this particular situation, but that was how the system worked and it was the only fair way for it to be.

Fair? But of course, Icon was from a noble family. And sometimes the nobles had ways of avoiding the punishments that common mecha would face. Was that Jazz's concern? That Icon's family might ensure that their status was not diminished by these acts and thus cover this up?

Or was it that Jazz was still Icon's friend, and did not want to see his friend hurt this way? In which case... _ain't gonna do anythin' I'll regret_... Jazz could well be on his way to warn him. Rising quickly, Prowl left his room and hurried towards the communications centre. He had to get the message out quickly.

Reaching the administration block he paused. There was a large crowd and something of a commotion. The hallway was blocked and he heard some of the staff insisting that all students leave the area. Frustrated, he was going to try to push through anyway when he ran straight into Slimline. He hadn't seen her at all, and she hadn't seen him, but now she turned and for a moment their gazes locked. He saw her expression morph from surprise to triumph, then to uncertainty and finally anger in the click before he turned away. He didn't have time to deal with her right now, he had to find a comm line and call for help before Jazz did something that completely destroyed their case.

Thinking quickly, he remembered that there was a comm unit in the commissary, near the oil dispenser. He hadn't used it before because it was so public, but right now he didn't care who saw or heard him. Heading that way he was only two corridors away from his goal when there was a sudden searing pain across his doorwings that made him fall to his knees. Disoriented, he was barely aware of others asking if he was alright, then someone helped him up and guided him away to somewhere he could sit down. The pain passed, and he found himself staring down at wrists and ankles that were now shackled with strips of sealing tape. Trying not to show his nervousness he looked up to see his "resucer", unsurprised to find himself staring at a snarling Slimline.

"What _are_ you?"

It was dismayingly similar to the initial conversation he had had with Jazz, but he suspected this one would not end as amicably.

"What do you mean?"

"Why can't we game you?"

"I don't understand." he responded, then gasped as there was another arc of pain across his doorwings.

She must have attached some electrodes, he realised fuzzily as he struggled to maintain his balance.

"You're nothing special, you're just another mech. So why doesn't it work on you? Why _you_? And don't think I don't know why you're here. You're here cause Piper called you, didn't he? The slagger. He called you so you could all tell lies about me, well it's _not going to work_!"

Another shock, and then a fizzling sound. He managed to look up just as she threw a remote control to the ground in frustration.

"Stupid thing." she huffed, crushing it beneath her pede.

For a moment she seemed totally absorbed by the task of reducing the item to nothing but grit, then she suddenly stopped and turned back to face him. She stared at him for a moment, then gave him a sweet smile, slinking over to him.

"Listen, darling. Why don't you just tell me what I want to know and everything'll be just fine? I'm not asking for much, I just want to know why you're here and why we can't game you."

If anything, this sudden moodswing was more alarming than if she had kept yelling at him. Was she entirely unstable?

"I'm here to study..." he began.

She shrieked and lashed out at him, missing in spite of his current immobility.

"You're here to help _Piper_. Did he know I wanted Jazz to game him? Is that why he called you?"

"Why ask Jazz to game Piper?" he asked cautiously, avoiding a direct answer.

"Piper had to go away." she ranted. "He said I was cheating, he wasn't going to let me pass. I _have_ to pass. Don't you understand? If I fail then I'll have to go back to Praxus. I _hate_ Praxus, with all its stuffy rules and silly traditions. I can't go back there. I won't."

"There are other ways to leave a city, beyond cheating on tests." Prowl pointed out.

She scowled.

"Easy for you to say. Everything's always come easy to you. How could you possibly understand that things don't always turn out the way you want them to?"

Prowl bit back the response that he understood that all too well, and fished for more information since she currently seemed willing to talk.

"So how did Icon become involved?"

"He's trapped too. He's stuck here because there's nowhere else for him to be. Right now. But if he can cause some accidents he can become the heir. He can go home. And he'll take me with him, I'll live in the Towers and learn to hunt and go to parties and never have to worry about funding again. Never ever have to go back to Praxus again."

"I don't understand. If Icon is helping you, why are you still paired with Jazz?"

The distracted look in her optics faded a little and she frowned at him.

"You're asking a lot of questions. Why?"

"I just want to know. If I'm going to die I'd at least like to know the truth."

"The truth?" she giggled madly, notably not arguing with his assumption that she was going to kill him. "Which truth? The truth that Icon's just not good enough to game someone unless Jazz's done it first? The truth that I was the one who caused your accident? Or the truth that Piper turned me down when I tried to get into his berth? That slagger. What could Veneer give him that I couldn't? I _needed_ that grade..."

Prowl kept recording her diatribe, but was not aware of the words as the meaning of those first few sentences washed over him. She had _caused_ his accident? He had never seriously considered that; it was simply bad fortune. But of course she had felt cornered by his ultimatum. And apparently killing someone was not outside her range of acceptable options when it came to resolving her problems.

Which meant that if she did decide to kill him, she would have no qualms about it. Worse, she was seriously unstable, probably had been for vorns and no-one had guessed. Even Jazz now thought Icon was the dangerous one; it had not occurred to them to think it was both.

And worst of all: no-one who cared knew where he was, so there was no-one coming to his rescue. He would have to get himself out of this.

Somehow.


	8. Chapter 8

"What the frag are you doing?" Icon demanded.

Jazz surged to his pedes, his patience at an end.

"What am _I_ doing? What the frag are _you_ doing, mech?" he demanded. "I thought you were my friend, and instead I find out you're a monster!"

Icon glared at him.

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh no? I read your system logs. You killed Piper and Veneer! You tried to kill Prowl. And worst of all you gamed _me_!"

Even as he made that last accusation he knew it sounded silly in comparison to the previous ones, but the truth was that it was that last fact that hurt the most. Killing via gaming was so abhorrent he could barely fathom it was possible even after seeing the evidence for himself, but they had had a pact that they would never game each other. He couldn't focus on the impossible, but the breaking of that promise was a betrayal that cut deeply.

"I was trying to help you."

"Help me? How? By killin' me too?"

"Don't act glitched, I wasn't going to hurt you. Slimline said you were acting like what happened was your fault when it wasn't anything to do with you at all."

"Well I know that _now_ \- it was you all along! But what were you thinkin'? You didn't even _know_ them - you've never had classes wit' Veneer an' your last class wit' Piper was vorns ago!"

"It wasn't about them, they were just tests."

"Tests?" Jazz choked.

"Yes. I needed to know that it really worked. I thought it would, but I couldn't be sure until I tested it. Now that I know it works, I can use it on the ones who _really_ deserve it and get out of here."

"You're gonna kill your _family_." Jazz abruptly realised where this was going.

"Naturally. You know how much I want to go home, and this is the perfect answer. There'll be no proof, nothing to tie me to it. So I'll go home, and then, oh _then_ things'll be different. We're going to be rich and better than that, we'll have _power_."

"We?" Jazz asked dubiously. "What do you mean 'we'?"

Icon smiled at him.

"Well of course you have to come with me. You know I've never gotten the knack of identifying targets, so I can't do it without you. But just think about it. With this we can do anything! Anything at all!"

The whole concept was so insane that it left Jazz lost for words, though he sensed it would be a very bad idea to tell Icon what he really thought of the plan, particularly while he was trapped in this corner of the room and with Icon being only half a step from the locker that housed his favourite hunting rifle. He had to keep him talking until he could get out of here. Then he thought he might run to the nearest comm and call in the Enforcers, saying anything he had to if it meant this dangerous mech got taken away: Icon had to be stopped.

"What about Slimline?" he asked, spotting the datapads again and gesturing to them to explain his change of subject.

"What about her?" Icon shrugged. "You can do better. I've told her she'll come with us, to get her to play along and try to convince you, but the femme's crazy. She'd probably kill you in your charge, one orn. She's the one who picked Piper to be the test target."

"But it wasn't Piper who got killed first, it was Veneer."

"That was your fault, not mine." Icon shrugged. "She thought you were gonna game Piper that night, not Veneer. Gave me the wrong code. I had to show her how to check against your logs to get the right codes."

"What'd she have against Piper?" Jazz asked, moving to sift idly through the datapads as a first step to getting closer to the door.

"He caught her cheating." Icon shrugged. "Said he would have her thrown out."

"She doesn't cheat."

"Oh come on, Jazz, you're not that stupid. She's cheated her way through every class she ever took. Except for the ones where she slept with the instructor and she didn't have to bother. But Piper caught her and he turned her down when she offered herself, and oh was she mad when that happened. First time anyone's ever done that. She wanted revenge."

Jazz tried to wrap his processors around what Icon was saying, but then his optics landed on a familiar pad.

"What's _this_ doin' here?"

It was the assignment that he had handed in for Piper's class. The one that had gone missing.

"She wanted revenge." Icon repeated. "And she wanted you to do it for her, except of course you wouldn't. You don't have the struts to actually kill someone. So she tried to make you angry at him by stealing your assignment. Primus only knows what you were thinking when you attacked Veneer instead, but it doesn't matter now. And don't worry, you don't have to kill anyone at all. Ever. I'll do all that - all you need to do is find the targets. Simple. Your hands'll stay clean."

"An' if I say no?" the words blurted out in spite of his knowledge that it was stupid.

Icon's optics darkened.

"You won't dare."

They stared at each other for a moment, then both jumped as the door chime sounded. Reluctantly Icon went to answer it, and Jazz nearly cheered as he saw Clattertrap accompanied by four large-framed Enforcers. He was saved!

"There." Clattertrap said. "See?"

The Enforcers stepped inside, but confusingly looked straight past Icon and focused on him.

"Student Jazz, you are under arrest for the murders of Student Veneer and Tutor Piper, and the disappearance of Student Prowl. You will come with us."

* * *

Slimline's attention had been caught by the view through the window of something occurring in the courtyard three floors below. She had her back to Prowl, and he was closer to the door, but it did not help him at all. With his wrists and ankles bound together, and his doorwings damaged from the earlier attacks, he could not balance except to lean against the wall behind him. He was stuck on this bench just as effectively as if she had tied him down.

Determined not to give in to despair, he tried to think of alternatives. How could he rescue himself, other than to get free and run?

The room they were in was a study suite. It was a semi-public space with no lock on the door, so it was possible that someone could work through the door at any moment. On the other hand, it was only the beginning of the term so there was no pressure to study and with classes so badly disrupted by the deaths there were few students who would do more than attend their timetabled sessions. Many did not even do that. So in fact, it was the perfect trap.

Outside the unlocked door there would be dozens of students all on their way between venues. All it would take was one of them to trigger the door and they would see him here tied up and realise that things were not right. But time was passing and that was not happening. They had no reason to come in here. And the room's in-built soundproofing meant that he could not call out to them.

Not that Slimline was likely to take well to him starting to yell.

If he had been a trained infiltrator he would have been equipped with an internal comm system which he could use to broadcast a message or contact his controller directly. But no-one had thought there would be that level of danger here; they had not expected him to be targetted.

"No!" Slimline gasped, suddenly. "They can't!"

She stared for a moment longer, then swung round and rushed up to him, looming over him.

"Why have they arrested Jazz? What have you done?"

Jazz had been arrested?

"It's nothing to do with me."

"Liar!" she screamed, grabbing at him and throwing him bodily to the floor.

He landed awkwardly on one doorwing, crying out as an edge buckled, but he had no time to worry about that as she started kicking at him.

"It's your fault! Everything's gone wrong since you got here! Just like it did back in Praxus!"

She was doing considerable damage, but he tried to stay focused, twisting so that her kicks actually helped him loosen his bindings. If he could get free then he had a chance. He just hoped that he could get away before she hit anything vital.

* * *

"Where is Prowl?" the Enforcer commander demanded, looming over him.

"I don't know." Jazz said tiredly for the ninth time. "Did you try his room?"

"This isn't a game. Tell me where he is."

"I don't know."

"You're not convincing me."

"I don't _know_." Jazz ground out. "If I knew, I'd tell ya. The last time I saw him, he was in his room."

"And what were you doing in his room?"

Jazz glared at him, saying nothing more.

"Sir!" another officer interrupted. "We've got a mech here who says this student has vandalised his terminal and destroyed all his files - he claims his whole vorn's work was lost."

"Send for a data technician to restore it." the commander dismissed the issue, but then refocused on Jazz.

"The charges are certainly piling up for you, aren't they? Are you going to deny that too?"

Jazz stayed silent. He had destroyed Icon's data, alright, but it wasn't a vorn full of classwork and no data technician would never be able to restore it. At least, he didn't think they would. That was a bit of a worry. But more of a worry was what had happened to Prowl.

These officers had apparently come without Prowl calling them, and they had come for him. Clattertrap had obviously gone to them, as he had threatened to do, not knowing that the matter was already in their hands. But why hadn't Prowl called? That had been the mech's intention when Jazz had left him, so what had delayed him and where had he gone? Unless Jazz's fix on Icon's gaming had failed and Prowl had seen Slimline and was now...

"Try the astronomy tower." he croaked, feeling sick. "Maybe he went up there."

Except he wouldn't be up there anymore, if that was what had happened. He would be a long way down from there, either dead or dying.

"What makes you suggest there?" the commander asked, gesturing sharply to two of the officers who left the group immediately.

Jazz shrugged uncomfortably.

"He mentioned it. Said he thought he'd go take a look."

It couldn't be possible, could it? He was sure he had destroyed that line of code, how could it possibly have played out anyway? Or had there been something else that he had missed? He had had so little time, what if Icon had gamed Prowl twice and he had only seen the second one?

A cold chill settled in his spark. With Prowl dead the Enforcers would never let him go, regardless of whether or not they had any evidence. Meanwhile Icon would be free to try to find someone else to rebuild what he had lost. There were dozens of other gamers out there, and he had never really made a secret of his pranks. It was only a matter of time before someone figured it all out for themselves, just as he had.

"How did you meet Prowl?"

The question shook him out of his thoughts, but left him just as speechless. How was he supposed to answer? He had met Prowl thinking he was meeting a monster who had molested his lover only to discover... what? What exactly _did_ he know about Prowl? Or about Slimline, for that matter?

"I don't know." he responded faintly.

There were more questions but he couldn't hear them. Several orns with little rest on top of decaorns of stress finally caught up with him, and his body decided enough was enough. He dropped offline without even realising it.

* * *

Brass stared at the mech he had been interrogating, completely at a loss at this culprit who was not at all what he had feared he might be. The student had not shown any signs of violence, had not resisted other than to fail to give the answers Brass wanted to hear, and now had actually dropped offline in front of him! What was he supposed to make of that?

Lighttouch had come along out of concern for Prowl and now took over, quickly scanning the mech slumped at the table. Leaving the medic to figure out what had happened, Brass turned to addresshis remaining staff.

"Quickstep, go to the administrator's office and find out if there is any surveillance footage that will help. Clutch, call the local office for more support: I want the whole place under lockdown until we get this sorted out. The rest of you search every room, I want Prowl found."

"Sir - shouldn't some of us stay to guard the prisoner?" Meridian asked.

"The _prisoner_ isn't going to be causing any trouble." Lighttouch said drily, straightening.

Brass stared at her.

"He's not dead!"

"No, just dead tired." he was assured. "Without a medical override, he's not going to wake up for at least a joor. He's neither fuelled nor recharged properly in a foolishly long time."

"Sir!" one of the officers burst back into the room. "They've found Prowl - they need a medic immediately!"

Brass clenched his fists.

"Stay with this one. Lighttouch, with me."

Primus help whoever had harmed the junior tactician, Brass was going to make them wish they had never onlined.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: one more death and we're done!

Prowl sat perfectly still, waiting patiently while several others applied solvent to the adhesive tape and gradually got it to loosen. Lighttouch had toned down his pain sensors so he was sitting in relative comfort in spite of the dents and scratches that covered the length of his frame, and the medic had shooed out Brass, insisting that he could not be expected to make any report until he was freed and medically cleared, so he had time now to sit in peace and think.

There was much to think about.

Slimline had still been kicking at him when the door had opened and an Enforcer had stepped in. Before the Enforcer had time to react, before Prowl even had time to speak, she had done something totally unexpected: she had immediately reached into her subspace, pulled out a rifle and used it on herself.

Why had she not used it to threaten him, he wondered uneasily. Why did she have it with her, if not for that reason? And why act so instantly, without any moment for thought?

The most likely answer was as disturbing as the questions: she had been gamed to react that way if she was approached by an Enforcer. No doubt it was a protection policy for Icon; given what she had said, she could implicate him, and if Icon knew how unstable she was then he would need to ensure she was never in a position to give him away.

That theory could never now be proven, he knew. From the chatter of those around him, he knew that Jazz had destroyed Icon's terminal. So with Icon staying silent and the evidence gone, the cause of Slimline's death would always remain an unsolvable mystery. Jazz had apparently also destroyed his own terminal, and no doubt the evidence they had collected had been lost too.

Why? he fretted. Why had Jazz done it? Did Jazz truly want to protect his friend, so much that he would leave himself as the prime suspect? What Icon had done was horrific and needed to be addressed, not ignored. Jazz was not stupid and he was clearly appalled by the use Icon had made of his software...

 _His_ software. Several pieces fell into place and it all suddenly made sense.

Jazz felt partially responsible for Veneer and Piper's deaths because he had engineered the software which made this terrible crime possible. Even if Icon was able to be properly punished - and there even Prowl had his doubts, given the way the nobles could sway the judiciary here in Iacon - someone else might make use of it. So Jazz would want it gone, even at the risk of letting Icon go free.

The result would be that Jazz would remain the prime suspect; there would be nothing to link Icon to the crimes he had committed. That was wrong, and yet what would make it right? Perhaps keeping online gaming a secret would stop it spreading out to where a more dangerous hardened criminal element could discover it.

"Prowl?"

He refocused and found Lighttouch frowning at him.

"Were you dropping into a freeze then?" he was asked, the medic reaching out to connect a data cable to help him.

The others were all gone and his wrists and ankles were free of restraints, he realised belatedly. Only Lighttouch and Brass were here now, the commander waiting impatiently to the side.

"I'm fine." he assured the medic. "In fact, I haven't had a freeze the entire time I've been here."

Strange to think, but it was true. He set that fact aside for later analysis and focused on the commander.

"I'm ready to report, sir."

"Only for three breems." Lighttouch told him sharply. "Then we need to get you to a clinic and get those injuries seen to."

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Alright, Brass, he's all yours."

The medic swept out, closing the door, and Brass pulled up a chair.

"Prowl."

"Sir."

"It seems you've had an eventful few orns."

"Yes sir."

Brass consulted some notes on a datapad.

"The femme who was attacking you, who was she?"

Prowl hesitated, surprised that his commander did not already know, then realised that this was just normal debriefing procedure: get all of the details individually from each source so that nothing was overlooked.

"Her name was Slimline. I knew her back in Praxus." He paused, then said what she had revealed. "She claimed that she was the one who caused the incident there that nearly cost me my life."

That was certainly a new piece of information, and the commander looked at him sharply.

"Do you believe the claim?"

"It is difficult to be sure but yes, I believe she had both motive and the will to carry the action through. I had caught her cheating on an important test and informed her so that she could confess before I approached the tutors."

He was just about to say that it was almost the same situation here that had cost Piper his life, but held back on that. If he was right that Jazz had taken the blame to keep online gaming a secret - and thus stop anyone else from trying it - then it was better not to make this more complicated than it needed to be.

"And her attack on you now?"

"She has remained paranoid about my arrival here, seeming to believe that I have followed her. Today, however, she was particularly upset that she couldn't find Jazz and blamed me for his disappearance."

"Why would she blame you?"

"I spent some time talking to him yesterday." Prowl said blandly, musing inwardly that that was quite an understatement but determined not to give any indication of that. "She tried initially to convince Jazz that I was in some way an undesirable acquaintance, and was distraught to find that after talking to me he did not share her opinion."

"I see." Brass said in a brisk tone that suggested that he had further questions but was aware that time was passing. "So, on to Jazz. We have him in custody."

"There is no need." Prowl said firmly. "There is no evidence that he was involved in either death."

"You said he threatened you."

"He was protecting his lover." Prowl explained. "He did not realise how unstable she was, any more than anyone else did."

"We have a witness who is willing to testify that Jazz was involved in some kind of illegal programming activity."

Prowl chose his words with care.

"After an in-depth investigation into Jazz's activities I can say with confidence that none of his actions broke any law. Nor did he take any direct action which led to the death of any other mech."

"And indirectly?" Brass asked, alert to the phrasing.

Prowl held his commander's gaze evenly.

"It is well known that he did not like Veneer and that he had a contentious relationship with Piper over a period of several vorns after a foolish prank in his first vorn studying here. That said, it is equally well known that he has worked alongside Veneer on various assignments without allowing that animosity to influence him, and that he has taken classes under Piper every vorn of his study so far and has remained within the top quartile in terms of academic achievement. His grades this term were similarly high. There is no clear motive for him to have acted at this time."

"And how do you interpret his vandalism towards his computer terminal and also that of the student Icon who has also claimed Jazz bears responsibility in the deaths?"

"Jazz and Icon were both involved in a gaming club which Jazz recently left. He had written some proprietary software which he and Icon were using, and I understand there was some contention between them as to the use of it. Beyond that, I do not have enough evidence to make a judgement on what may have occurred."

* * *

Jazz felt dazed as he walked out into the corridor. Was he truly free?

When he had come online he had been in the private ward of a medical clinic. A medic had come and scanned him and informed him that he was now properly charged and fuelled, and had shown him to a small waiting room. A long, tense joor later an Enforcer had arrived to escort him out, but instead of going to the local station he had been taken back to the Academy and told to stay in his room until he was summoned. That summons had finally come the next morning, but again not to the station, just to report to a meeting room.

Inside he had found the stern Enforcer commander from the previous orn who had reprimanded him strongly for the damage he had done to Icon's computer, then walked out, leaving Jazz with a specialist who asked many questions about his programming knowledge. He was initially concerned that they wanted to know about gaming, but it soon became obvious that the technician was only interested in his thorough job of the data destruction on the terminal.

When that was finally over, he was dismissed without anyone mentioning the deaths that he had supposedly been arrested in relation to. Finding himself in the corridor, the door swishing closed behind him, he wondered if he had totally lost touch with reality. What had happened while he had been offline?

"All done?" someone asked him.

He looked around and found Prowl standing nearby.

"What the frag was all that about?"

"Checkdigit is very impressed with you." Prowl responded, gesturing for him to walk with him.

"Seems so. But you know what I mean. What happened while I was chargin'?"

"As there was no evidence of foul play, the investigation has ended." Prowl said, then glanced at him anxiously. "Did someone tell you...?"

"'Bout Slimline?" Jazz finished hoarsely. "Yeah. An' if you're thinkin' it, yeah I think he made her do it."

"But we can't prove it now, can we?"

"Nope."

They stood in silence, staring over the balcony down at a small garden three floors below.

"One thing I don't understand." Prowl commented eventually. "You destroyed his terminal, but all he needs to do is talk to someone else about what he was able to do, and they might start down the path you feared just as successfully as if you had let the trial go ahead."

"Ain't gonna happen."

"You seem very sure."

"That's cause I am."

Prowl considered that for a moment, then looked sidelong at him.

"You gamed him."

"My computer's broken, remember? There ain't even a base unit left in my room."

As though that would stop Jazz from going to another room and using a different computer, Prowl mused, remembering the mech arriving in his room through the ceiling.

"Nevertheless, you managed it."

Jazz sighed.

"Once I saw how he was doin' it, I could replicate it. I gamed him an' ev'ryone else here who ever gamed anyone, an' they ain't gonna remember a thing about it. As soon as they start thinkin' about it, their memories'll skip t'somethin' else."

"Everyone except you."

"Yeah well. Ain't quite brave enough t'game m'self. Besides, if I thought of it once, I might think of it again; better if I remember how it went wrong, too. So I guess you'll jus' have to arrest me. I've done some pretty bad stuff, after all."

"Perhaps. There is an alternative to arresting you."

"What?" Jazz scoffed. "Lettin' me kill myself? Sorry, mech, I wanna live."

"Have you ever considered joining the Enforcers?"

"Doin' _what_?" Jazz choked.

"Not as a common officer, but as an undercover agent." Prowl clarified. "Jazz, you are a mech with many dubious skills but also with a good spark. We could use someone like you to help catch those whose morals are less well developed. Right now you cannot complete your qualifications here; you've said as much yourself. As an Enforcer you would have training and support, and be able to use the skills that you clearly have in abundance. Skills that are very hard to come by."

"An' they'd really have me? After all this!"

"After all what?" Prowl asked lightly. "The worst thing you've done is destroy some data, which is precisely what has Checkdigit so impressed. He would be verey interested in you, should you choose to change career. Also, I would speak on your behalf. While I am still young, I have some influence with the Praxian Commander. Not that you must come to Praxus; I simply believe it would be better for everyone if we made use of your talents."

The offer was so incredibly unexpected it left Jazz speechless. Prowl seemed to understand and held his peace while Jazz tried to grasp the concept. Here he was, effectly involved in two murders, having nearly gotten Prowl killed himself, and he was being offered a future so different to the one he had spent all night thinking about.

"There's another alternative." Jazz pointed out after a moment, unable not to mention it. "You could have me wiped. Start over completely."

"If that is what you prefer." Prowl said neutrally.

Jazz shook his head. It wasn't what he wanted at all, simply what he had concluded he was going to face.

"An Enforcer." he muttered. "Never even considered bein' somethin' like that."

"It will require hard work, but I believe you will do well."

"An' maybe see more of you?"

"Highly unlikely." Prowl shook his head sharply. "Other than this one exception, I expect to spend most of my career shut away in the tactical centre."

Jazz tilted his head towards him. With all the so-called friends he had just lost, he was not going to be walking away so quickly from the one mech he thought he might actually be able to trust.

"We'll see each other around." Jazz assured him. "Count on it."

"So is that an acceptance of my offer?" Prowl asked.

"Officer Jazz." Jazz murmured, then laughed. "Well why not. Come on, mech. My life's been totally insane so far this vorn, why should it stop now? Just one thing, though."

"What is that?"

" _You_ get t'tell my creators I'm givin' up bein' an ambassador for walkin' a beat!"


End file.
